Spending via Conversational Commerce to Near $135 Billion by 2027

Global spending via conversational commerce will be near $135 billion by 2027; rising from $39 billion in 2023, according to a new study by Juniper Research. It found that in 2027, 47% of spending will be attributable to OTT-based channels, including WhatsApp and WeChat.

Specifically, as superapps increasingly provide multiple services within a single interface, including payments, commerce, and messaging, greater engaging commerce interactions will be orchestrated. The research urges OTT apps to fully integrate such features to reduce friction or risk losing traffic. The new research found that Asia Pacific will account for 75% of total spending over conversational commerce channels in 2027. This will be driven by country-specific apps such as WeChat, LINE, and KakaoTalk embedding in-house payment solutions. The research identified that the versatility of these apps, which combine features from WhatsApp, Twitter, PayPal, and Uber, will be key to developing a strong digital marketplace; offering an improved user experience.

“As the development of ‘superapps’ will create a new ecosystem for business messaging, communication service providers must ensure that they have strong, proactive partnerships with the most popular superapps to maximize their role in the conversational commerce value chain,“ commented research author Elisha Sudlow-Poole.

The research forecasts that the total number of OTT-based conversational commerce users in Europe and North America will rise by 179% to reach 33.4 million by 2027. For these regions to emulate the success of Asia Pacific, communication platform providers must ensure that they can support the influx of traffic from OTT messaging apps, as well as the ability to provide depth within these channels through the use of value-added services. This will ensure they remain an integral part of the ecosystem, as the capabilities of OTT messaging apps increase.