SMS Firewall Revenue to Reach $4.1 Billion Globally by 2026

Total SMS firewall revenue will increase from $911 million in 2021 to $4.1 billion in 2026; representing an absolute growth of 346%, according to a study by Juniper Research. SMS firewalls are third-party solutions that sit within operator networks; enabling the real-time monitoring of network traffic, enhancing operator capabilities to block fraudulent traffic, and minimize revenue loss.

The new research urges operators to implement advanced SMS filtering solutions, with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to mitigate the constantly evolving tactics of fraudulent players. A failure to adopt firewalls with these capabilities will leave operators open to diminished revenue from business messaging, as fraudsters mask business messaging traffic to avoid termination fees.

The report found that the volume of business messaging traffic monitored by SMS firewalls will increase from 3.1 trillion in 2021 to 4.4 trillion in 2026; representing an absolute growth of 45%, as operators increase their investment in advanced analytics, such as natural language processing abilities, that enable the efficient identification of business use cases in the content of the message.

The research predicts that SMS firewalls will reduce operator losses to grey route traffic [the concealment of lucrative business messaging traffic within the less profitable channel of P2P messages]. By minimizing the profit to be made from the successful transmission of grey route traffic, SMS firewall implementation will reduce operator losses to fraud from $5.6 billion in 2021 to $922 million by 2026.

“SMS firewall solutions will limit the possibilities of grey routes by elevating the prices associated with concealing fraudulent traffic, in order to avoid network detection. This will make paying for traffic termination via legitimate routes a more cost-effective option, as fraudulent players will struggle to justify the increased costs associated with grey route transmission,“ remarked research author Scarlett Woodford.