SMS Traffic Fraud Will Drop by 75 Percent by 2025

Operator revenue from SMS business traffic will reach $50 billion in 2025, increasing from $39.6 billion in 2020, according to Juniper Research. This represents an overall growth of 26%, driven by the reduction in illegitimate traffic due to the implementation of SMS firewalls.

The new research found that fraudulent traffic will decrease by 75% over the forecast period, from 539 billion messages in 2020 to 138 billion in 2025. Operators will experience significant benefits as traffic delivered over legitimate channels increases, with operator revenue lost to illegitimate channels drastically reducing from $5.8 billion in 2020 to $1.2 billion in 2025.

The report contains Juniper Research’s analysis of 20 leading SMS firewall providers, based on criteria including the level of technology innovation and digital investment. The top 5 vendors leading Juniper Research’s SMS Firewall Vendor Positioning Index were: Infobip, Mavenir, Mobileum, Proofpoint and Tata Communications.

The leading vendors all offer advanced analytics within their firewall offerings; using natural language processing and machine learning to combat fraudulent activity. The research highlighted machine learning’s ability to identify and mitigate fraudulent traffic in real-time as critical for reducing fraudulent traffic.

“Machine learning is crucial to combatting fraud, as it enables network operators to compete with the constantly evolving tactics of malevolent players. SMS firewall vendors must implement machine learning techniques to detect new fraudulent tactics, or they risk losing market share to more technologically-adept vendors,“ said research author Scarlett Woodford.

The report forecasts that North America will witness the most significant decline in illegitimate traffic, with volumes decreasing from 178.4 billion in 2020 to 1 billion in 2025. This extraordinary drop will be driven by widespread firewall adoption by operators in North America, who are keen to offset falling voice revenue.