Just How Popular Is RCS Messaging? Google Announces A Major US Milestone.

Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority

Google has embraced RCS on Android for years, and Apple finally joined the party last year. Now, the search giant has announced a key milestone for the modern texting standard.

Google announced in a blog post that over one billion RCS messages are sent in the US every day. The company said this figure was an average over the last 28 days.

How does this figure compare to global usage, though? We’ve asked the GSMA and will update our article as soon as the organization has an answer. We also asked Google how this one billion figure compares to daily usage in previous years. The company only referred to its previously disclosed figure of over one billion monthly active users with RCS enabled via Google Messages.

Oddly enough, T-Mobile previously reported in 2020 that its customers sent over 700 million RCS messages each day. The carrier didn’t clarify at the time whether this figure only referred to T-Mobile customers in the US or worldwide.

RCS enables a variety of modern messaging features, such as high-quality media sharing, voice notes, typing indicators, read receipts, message reactions, and location sharing. It also uses data, which means you only need an internet connection (e.g. mobile data or Wi-Fi) to send and receive messages.

RCS got a significant boost late last year when Apple adopted the standard for texting between Android and iOS. This came after years of iMessage falling back to SMS for Android users, resulting in heavily compressed images/videos and a dearth of other features. So we wouldn’t be surprised if Apple’s adoption helped Google reach this one billion mark.

Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at [email protected]. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it’s your choice.