By
Telecom Lead Team: There will be 15
million Rich Communication Suite (RCS), RCS-e, and RCS-like service subscribers
by 2013, with the majority in Asia and Western Europe, according to a report by
Infonetics Research.
Mobile
operators around the world to take in a cumulative $1.6 billion over the 5
years from 2012 to 2016 from RCS service fees.
RCS
will rise in popularity in North America as operators launch voice-over-LTE
(VoLTE) services, with RCS tied to VoLTE as a core part of the service, but
operators are not expected to charge directly for RCS capabilities in North
America.
Major
handset manufacturers including HTC, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson are
developing a limited suite of RCS-e compliant handsets, as a growing number of
third-party vendors offering downloadable RCS clients for the Android devices.
Apple, however, hasn’t shown any interest or commitment to RCS to date.
The
report suggested that the initial target market for RCS is people in their 20s
who actively engage in social networking, followed by always-connected business
users and mobile-centric users, particularly with high Internet consumption.
A
year ago we declared that RCS had been relegated to niche status, and our
viewpoint has not changed. As of January 2012, there are still no commercially
available formal RCS or RCS-e services,” said Diane Myers, directing analyst
for VoIP and IMS at Infonetics Research.
Spanish
operators Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone have announced plans to launch RCS-e
in the first half of 2012, however, it will be too little too late to have a
meaningful impact. On the flip side, mobile operators such as China Mobile, SK
Telecom and MegaFon continue to find success with RCS-like services, offering a
mix of features and packages that fit their individual markets.