Navigating the A2P SMS Landscape: An Insightful Conversation with Alexander Spyrotis of MobiWeb

Alexander

I’m fine. Thank you. It is a pleasure for me. Thank you for the invitation. It is really great to be here to discuss with you important key topics regarding the ongoing process of the market.

Jason

So, how is business in MobiWeb these days?

Alexander

Actually business is excellent. So, we have experience of the decades of A2P success and we do not expect it to slow down at least for this decade. The A2P messaging market continues to expand, mainly due to its versatility, cost effectiveness and the ability to provide seamless communication between businesses and customers. More and more businesses realise and prioritise mobile communication and engagement strategies for their customers. So we are happy to be a front runner and a global provider in this continuously growing market, offering innovative solutions to our customers.

Jason

So Alex, you were actually voted as tier one in our A2P SMS research by enterprise customers, which is a fantastic achievement. How did the team react to this win?

Alexander

It’s great! We are extremely proud and everyone across the board is enthusiastic about it. I mean, this recognition highlights our commitment to customer satisfaction. Our main goals are to understand our customer needs and deliver tailored solutions to them. So we are thankful for the feedback provided by our customers, and this feedback is invaluable towards this goal. We are dedicated to stay at the forefront of innovation and we want to consistently improve our services and meet the evolving needs of our global clientele and the market as a whole.

Jason

Thanks, thanks for your feedback, Alex. I think it’s an exciting time for SMS as it continues to develop. But there’s also challenges, right? and it’s a difficult moment also for fraud in the industry. Do you think that the increasing impact to Artificial Inflation of Traffic will discourage enterprises from using SMS in the future?

Alexander

That’s a very good question and an important topic. I mean, absolutely, definitely. Artificial Inflation in SMS messaging will discourage enterprises from using SMS as a communication channel. At least that’s what we believe, it will come down. Right now, enterprises are starting to become concerned about inflated SMS costs, which will lead them to losing trust in SMS as a communication tool. With alternatives already available, enterprises may begin seeking out alternative communication channels that offer similar benefits without the risk of fraud. So Artificial Inflation is very powerful for the A2P SMS market. In our view, mobile operators and telcos need to start collaborating and tackle this. We, as an industry, must address fraud and address this issue because the rest of the world is confident in our ability to deal with enormous amounts of illegal deceptive traffic that continues to be conveyed worldwide through our users of services.

Jason

So if enterprises are not engaging with SMS, then what kinds of channels do you see them using besides A2P SMS?

 Alexander  

In our experience, I will have to say WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and RCS, in that specific order. So we have experienced a growth in the demand of these channels. We believe this is mainly because businesses are starting to embrace an omnichannel strategy regarding how they want the customers to be able to interact with them. For them, SMS is not enough anymore. So businesses want to be open and easily accessible to their customers with multiple communication touch points. They want to allow their customers to interact with them through the customer’s preferred channels. So we really expect a continuation in the demand growth of these channels, but as the A2P market generally grows, we expect A2P SMS to continue to grow at least for the following years.

Jason

Yeah, it does seem certain that SMS still has a role to play in the omnichannel approach. Let’s focus a little bit more on different customer types. How can SMS messaging and CpaaS in general assist small to medium enterprises specifically?

Alexander

I think that SMS messaging and CpaaS are very relevant for small and medium enterprises, and they can significantly benefit from it. So SMS allows business to engage with their customers frankly promptly. The near recent delivery of messages ensures that time-sensitive information like order confirmations, transactions, appointment reminders or emergency alerts reach customers quickly. Additionally, targeted promotional offers for discounts can drive sales and boost customer acquisition. On the security side, SMEs that implement 2-Factor Authentication enhance the security of the customer information in online services and platforms. Customer information is very important nowadays. Most of the SMS messaging and CPaaS providers offer API’s and integrations if the case. So SMEs can quickly implement SMS messaging leads into their workflow without significant technical expertise. And they can also automate communications, freeing up the resources for other critical tasks. These tools in general are cost effective with pay-as-you go models, scalable, and have global rates, making them ideal to support small and medium businesses growth and their expansion beyond the local market. So by leveraging SMS messaging and other CPaaS solutions, businesses can compete effectively in their respective markets, enhace their customer experience and drive business growth.

Jason

You guys have done very well in this years research, and there’s a lot of enterprises who think you are doing an amazing job. What would you say is the key differentiator that MobiWeb brings to this market?

Alexander

I believe that MobiWeb is a very experienced company. Ideal for other businesses that demand high quality A2P messaging and mainly for the following reasons. First of all, we serve several blue chip customers. And we are actively meeting the most demanding enterprise requirements, whether it is delivery rate, speed of delivery, scalability, and service uptime. So that’s really important because we have gone very smoothly through this process and we have the experience and the technical capability to service big enterprises from our experience with these blue chip companies. Second, we bring 24 years of extensive expertise and experience in market know-how helping businesses navigate the complex and fragmented telecom regulatory landscape. So this is really important because out of the box enterprises can enjoy seamless messaging services from MobiWeb, without worrying and with the guidance of our expert regulatory team. Another important factor is our customer support that is actually live and available 24/7, every day of the year providing help to enterprises, banks, big enterprises and other customers. And last but not least, for sure, is our focus on providing high quality messaging coupled with competitive pricing, because our market is very competitive, obviously. But we want to offer the best quality possible. So these are the main reasons we believe that we are valuable and that differentiate us from the market.

Jason

Alex, I want to ask a little bit about MobiWeb and its history, if you don’t mind because I’m very interested in how you guys started. You’ve been working in the company for 14 years, and you said the company is much older than that. Did it start by serving customers in Greece and then expanded or how did it evolve?

Alexander

Actually this brings a lot of memories. So yeah, MobiWeb actually started in Greece with a very, very small team of 2-3 persons at the beginning. And we began offering SMS messaging services and Value Added Services on the telecom spectrum to local businesses in Greece, authorities, government services, etc. At some point, we saw the potential so we said we needed to expand internationally because this is a relevant service globally. So we started establishing teams abroad, joining conferences, exhibitions, promoting our services. And you know, one thing brought the other, I mean, we started making advancements in technology with our own data servers, moving on with our own telecom platforms, and you know, we’re here now.

Jason

It’s an amazing story. And, you know, to watch companies who have been in the industry just as long as you guys have, is an incredible story, you know, to see it evolve and to see how the industry has grown.

Alexander

Yeah. We’re not a unicorn, but we’re a camel. How to say that? I mean, we’re very durable, moving on and producing good performance.

Jason

So what is next? What is next in the MobiWeb journey? What are you working on in 2023?

Alexander

So, right now we are really focused on launching our new CPaaS solution which will enable enterprises to offer omnichannel customer service and modern customer support experience to the customer through various channels. It will allow their enterprises essentially to connect to any channel from a CB customer support system. The initial channels supported will be WhatsApp, RCS, SMS and Facebook Messenger. There are more to come but these are the key channels of interest, that’s the feedback we’re getting from the enterprises sector. It will use advanced features like artificial intelligence to route messages to the appropriate agents based on various metrics like skill, language, workload, using natural language processing and application intelligence. We expect it to be commercial in Q4 2023, if not early Q1 2024. So that’s what we are really focused on right now. And that’s where the market is going.

Jason

Alex, while I have you online, what do you think is the differentiator that you can bring to the CPaaS market as MobiWeb?

Alexander

I think it is our focus on the customer needs and providing solutions that can actually help businesses to be more productive and give more efficiencies in processes using our tools to actually increase their productivity. I think the most important thing for us apart from technical expertise in information technology and platforms is our focus on the customer needs, and what will be really helpful for enterprises at this point.

Jason

Well, Alex, it’s been great to speak to you. Thank you for this interesting background to MobiWeb. It was very interesting to hear. I really genuinely look forward to seeing your CPaaS business evolve this year, and look forward to seeing you in future research reports.

Alexander

Jason, thank you very much for this opportunity to speak about MobiWeb and about the market as a whole. It’s been a pleasure. Let me just reiterate that we’re really proud about our tier 1 position and we really think that what you’re doing the market, your research and knowledge of the ROCCO foundation is really important.

Jason

Thanks a lot Alex, it’s been great to chat to you. Looking forward to speaking to you again.

Alexander

Thank you, Jason.

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