SMS makes a strong comeback as global firms shift away from WhatsApp

Two months after Meta’s WhatsApp tweaked the pricing and norms for international authentication messages in India, some of its global customers, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, have switched to using the traditional text message route to deliver one-time passwords (OTPs).

This shift has pushed up the monthly international SMS volume of telecom operators in India by 50-70% since March.

Data sourced by ET showed that telecom operators collectively delivered 130-135 million international OTP messages in March, and interestingly, Meta (WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram) continued to be the largest contributors to the SMS volume.


“Yes, there has been an increase in international SMS volumes coming from large accounts, as they are choosing the ubiquitous channel which has the larger access and reach to all mobile users,” said Rajdip Gupta, managing director of cloud communications company Route Mobile. “It must also be noted that traditional telecom channels such as SMS and voice can prevent exchange of user data among competing technology firms.”

Email queries sent to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta and telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea remained unanswered.

In March, Meta’s WhatsApp started a new category called “authentication-international” for OTPs originating from global firms in India and Indonesia. It was priced at Rs 2.3 per message, a 20 times increase from what it was charging earlier, but still half of what enterprises pay for conventional SMSes.

Experts said that more than the price increase, big tech companies which compete directly with Meta are having to provide the primary location of the business where the message is being sent.

Business location has long been a subject of debate between tech companies such as Amazon and Google and telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea. This is mostly because there is no clear definition of international traffic in telecom regulations.

Telecom operators treat these tech companies as foreign based because they have their data servers overseas, whereas companies argue that they are India-registered entities whose SMSes are generated locally and travel over domestic networks.

From Meta’s perspective, the reason for friction could be competition and not regulations.

“There has been some movement towards SMS from global customers lately, but not because WhatsApp has become pricier. We still see many utility messages such as delivery notifications travelling over WhatsApp,” said Nitin Singhal, managing director of communications service provider Sinch.

“It is because enterprises want to reach a larger audience covering all kinds of mobile users. As for WhatsApp, it remains to be seen if the new authentication category could dent the market in a meaningful way when it becomes live beginning July 1.”

He said international SMS is the costliest channel which has been on a consistent decline over the last three to six months, when monthly volumes used to be as high as 1 billion.

As for the location-based categorisation of senders, Singhal said “the segregation is a requirement for all communication channels, be it SMS, WhatsApp or Google RCS (rich communication services)”.