Vodafone Idea partners Google to offer RCS messaging to enterprise customers in India

Mumbai: A battle is brewing between Google and WhatsApp over the Rs 2,500 crore enterprise messaging market in India. The US search giant is pushing an alternate mobile phone messaging system in the country that could disrupt the growing use of WhatsApp by enterprises for communicating with customers. That has the potential to upend the broader messaging-based communication ecosystem in the country, experts said.

Vodafone Idea (Vi) has become the first Indian telecom operator to partner with Google for offering rich communication service (RCS) messaging to enterprise customers in India, with bigger telco rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel expected to join the bandwagon soon, industry executives said.