What Every Business Ought to Know About A2P SMS

I’m sure you’ve received them. SMS messages sent by your bank, doctor, school, employer or even your mobile provider. They’re usually quick reminders of account balances or scheduled appointments. But they can be much more too.

Infoholic Research recently published its study on the global A2P SMS market, A2P SMS Market- Global Market Drivers, Opportunities, Trends, and Forecasts, 2016-2022. The report says that by 2020 there will be 4.6 billion unique mobile subscribers around the world. And the A2P SMS market is predicted to grow at 5.7% CAGR from 2016-2022.

The report goes on to credit the growing mobile subscriber base, cost effectiveness and the fact SMS doesn’t need the Internet as the main drivers for the increase. But there’s another reason.

Just about every business or organisation can use it. It’s actually hard to find one that can’t really. Here’s a list of the various business segments the Infoholic report includes:

• Retail
• BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance)
• IT & telecom
• Travel
• Transport
• Utilities
• Logistics
• Healthcare
• Government
• Education
• Media
• Entertainment

What else is there?

How do these business use SMS messaging? They integrate them into their applications such as:

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – appointment reminders, follow-up surveys, purchase confirmations, etc.
• Interactive services – contests, voting, charity donations
• Query and search-based services – bank balances, due dates, contact information

If your business or organisation falls into any of the above categories, or uses any of the applications, you could benefit from using A2P SMS – and so could your customers.

Transparency Market Research also has a study on the global A2P SMS market. They say, “A2P messages are convenient and easy to use with the introduction of advanced platforms integrated with APIs and messaging gateways. These platforms and gateways simplify the process of sending A2P SMS.”

We created the fastsms API to be just that: convenient and easy to use.

Rather than box you into using one type of programming language, we support the most popular choices on the web today:

• HTTP
• XML
• PHP
• .NET

For PHP and .NET users we offer a free SDK available through our developer support centre. HTTP and XML users will find all the documentation and code examples in there too. All the developer information is available for you to review, but you’ll need a free account to test it out.

And speaking of testing, we also have an API sandbox you can play in to see how it all works (You’ll need your token from your free account to use it). Why not try it out today?

Not everyone likes to code, or has the budget to build an interface to their application. If that’s you, don’t fret, we have another solution.

If you have an application that already interfaces with email via SMTP, you can use it to send SMS messages. It’s as simple as following our email template. Any emails sent using the template will be received by us, converted into an SMS message and forwarded along the usual routes. You get all the reliability, high deliverability, open and read rates without having to code anything new. Really, it’s true.

A2P SMS is gaining popularity for all the reasons mentioned above, and because people often prefer to receive text messages over email or voice calls. That’s especially true when the information is important to them like bank information, password resets or appointment reminders.

What you need to know is that using it can be easy and painless. And that there’s every reason to get started right away. Start by clicking the green Sign Up button at the top of the page, or ask your questions via our live chat. We’re happy to help you get started.