Market and trends

4 min read · Chapter 6 of 10

Who holds the power

Power here sits with whoever can block a message.

Carriers hold the pen in US messaging, from throughput and fees to suspending any brand, number or provider. Abroad they also approve sender IDs one by one and set termination prices.
Meta is the network, rulebook and price-setter for WhatsApp, with no carrier veto. It reprices quarterly and recategorizes your templates.
Google admits RCS partners and approves launches on Google-managed carriers; carriers set RCS prices, and Apple decides how iPhones show business RCS.
iconectiv sits at three chokepoints: porting (NPAC), routing data (LERG) and SHAKEN tokens.
The FCC holds the power that matters most to a platform: removal from the Robocall Mitigation Database, after which downstream providers must refuse your traffic. In August 2025 it removed nearly 1,400 providers for deficient filings.
Plaintiffs' lawyers and state attorneys general are the real enforcers of consent and quiet hours.
Regulators abroad are making sender registries mandatory: Singapore, Australia, Spain, India, and Colombia from about August 2027.
You, the platform, are the first line of KYC (know-your-customer checks) and decide whether a fine or a pumping loss gets absorbed or passed on. You control less than customers assume, and carry more of the loss than most contracts say.

Tailwinds and headwinds

These are the forces I'd expect everyone in messaging and voice to watch over the next couple of years. Each one helps some players and hurts others, and Meta ends up on the winning side of three of them and the losing side of none.

Tailwinds:

What's changing	Who gains	Who loses
WhatsApp is now a paid channel for every message a business sends, since Meta started charging for service replies on October 1, 2026.	Meta; partners that resell it (Gupshup, 360dialog, Infobip, Twilio, Sinch)	Carriers abroad whose business texts it replaces (América Movil, Vodafone, Reliance Jio); SMS aggregators such as Proximus Global; businesses that run support on WhatsApp and now pay per reply
AI voice agents now answer and place phone calls, and Twilio says its self-serve voice business grew about 50% in a year.	Twilio, Bandwidth, Telnyx, Plivo; US carriers, through minutes; Hiya, TNS and First Orion, since AI calls need a clean name	Vonage, shrinking inside Ericsson; providers without a low-latency voice network
Business RCS is taking off in the US now that iPhones show it, and Juniper Research counts more than six times as many US business RCS messages in 2025 as in 2024.	AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, which set RCS prices; Google; RCS partners such as Infobip, Sinch and Twilio	SMS-only aggregators; marketers, since a marketing RCS message can cost two to three times the SMS carrier fee
More countries require registered senders and the US is tightening identity checks and number resale, which favors platforms that handle compliance at scale.	Twilio, Sinch, Infobip; providers with their own numbers and networks (Bandwidth, Telnyx); The Campaign Registry, Somos, iconectiv	Grey routes; small resellers several levels down the number chain; senders with sloppy registration data
Businesses pay extra for branded calls, verification and fraud tools, and at Twilio these add-ons grew about 25% in a year, faster than plain messages.	Twilio, Hiya, TNS, First Orion; carriers that show the branding (T-Mobile, Verizon)	Callers who don't pay, whose calls drift to "Spam Likely"

Headwinds:

What's changing	Who gains	Who loses
Text-message login codes are in structural decline as banks and apps move to passkeys and in-app approval, and Proximus Global's core profit fell by about a third in its latest quarter.	Meta, through WhatsApp authentication messages; Apple and Google, through passkeys; verification products that work across channels, such as Twilio Verify	Aggregators (Proximus Global, Syniverse, Tata Communications); carriers abroad that earn international termination fees (Reliance Jio, Vodafone, América Movil)
US carrier fee rises inflate platforms' revenue while shrinking their margins, and they added about $71 million to Twilio's revenue in one quarter of 2026.	AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile; The Campaign Registry	Platforms' margins (Twilio, Bandwidth, Sinch); small senders, who may move to WhatsApp, RCS or email; flat-price contracts that don't pass fees through
Meta sets WhatsApp prices, can bill businesses directly and now sells its own AI business agents, so its partners keep a thinner slice.	Meta	Partners whose value is access (360dialog, Gupshup); platforms' WhatsApp margins (Twilio, Infobip, Sinch)
The FCC is going after number resale and robocall certifications while plaintiffs keep suing over consent and quiet hours, so being a provider costs more.	Providers with their own numbers and clean filings (Bandwidth, Telnyx); iconectiv	Multi-level number resellers and the platforms that buy through them; high-volume marketers
Plain text messages are becoming a commodity, with flat volumes in many markets, falling prices and cheaper challengers.	Telnyx, Plivo; buyers	Sinch, Proximus Global, Vonage; mid-size aggregators

The one thing I'd watch is Meta's quarterly "other revenue" line, even though it now mixes in some subscriptions, because it shows how fast business conversations are moving from paid texts to paid WhatsApp.