OTT Messaging Apps to Exceed 5 Billion Users by 2028

A new study by Juniper Research has revealed that 5.2 billion users globally will use over-the-top (OTT) messaging apps by 2028, representing over half the global population. This marks a 16% increase from 4.4 billion in 2025, driven by rising smartphone adoption and improved network infrastructure across emerging markets. 

The growing reach of OTT messaging will significantly influence enterprises’ business messaging strategies, as brands incorporate these channels to connect with customers on their preferred platforms and leverage their rich channel capabilities, particularly for marketing. “While enterprise use of Application-to-Person (A2P) via OTT will increase, platforms will look to limit marketing usage to preserve the value of Person-to-Person (P2P) messaging. Therefore, brands will need to introduce alternative capabilities, such as click-to-chat, to capitalise on OTT messaging growth,” explained Ardit Ballhysa, Senior Research Analyst at Juniper Research.

To avoid spamming OTT messaging users and work around marketing messaging restrictions, Juniper Research expects brands to shift to click-to-chat. This will enable them to capture customer data and engage in conversational commerce experiences without overloading OTT channels. Mobile messaging vendors must, therefore, simplify enterprise adoption by offering preconfigured templates that ease the launch of website‑originated messages.

“Enterprises may hesitate to implement click-to-chat if they do not have the systems and resources to handle the increase in incoming messaging traffic. To address this, mobile messaging vendors must promote their chatbot offerings, ensuring enterprises can automate and scale responses as customer use of click-to-chat accelerates,” Ballhysa concluded.