Instant Messaging (IM) PaaS丨Research Report
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Core summary:
IM PaaS is an instant messaging platform service based on the principle of Internet communication. "Global Instant Messaging (IM) PaaS Market Insights White Paper 2023" conducts systematic research on the development history, core value, main functions and business models of the IM PaaS industry, and conducts analysis and discussion on product forms and innovative application scenarios. The combination of IM PaaS and new concepts such as AIGC and Metaverse.
IM PaaS concept definition
IM PaaS can be called in the form of SDK/API, enabling applications to quickly integrate instant messaging capabilities
IM PaaS is an instant messaging platform service based on the principle of Internet communication. The IM PaaS provider encapsulates the instant messaging technology into the platform. The platform can provide communication capabilities including message transmission, group management, and session management. Users can use SDK/API interfaces to call this capability and integrate it into APPs, applets, etc. In the application, it helps the application realize instant messaging functions such as single chat, group chat, chat room, etc., and at the same time, it meets diversified communication needs by supporting rich message types. Since its development, IM PaaS has derived a variety of value-added services such as content auditing in addition to the basic instant messaging function, which not only meets the communication needs between the enterprise, the enterprise and customers, and users, but also empowers social entertainment, games, meta- Cosmos and other application scenarios create a richer social experience for users and increase user participation and stickiness.
The background and development process of IM PaaS
The large-scale Internet user base has established social needs, and the development of IM PaaS at home and abroad has entered a mature stage
With the popularization of smart phones and the development of mobile Internet around the world, people's demand for instant messaging continues to increase, especially in China, where a large-scale Internet user base drives strong social demand. In 2008, Twilio, a communications cloud provider, was established. At that time, IM PaaS in China was still in its infancy. From 2014 to 2015, China's key IM PaaS manufacturers basically entered the market. The interactive capabilities quickly obtained by enterprise applications after integrating IM PaaS can attract users to interact with enterprises and increase user activity. This core value has been valued by the market, and in the following three years, major cloud companies have successively released IM PaaS-related products. In 2020, domestic IM PaaS will basically enter a mature stage, and later manufacturers will focus on the improvement of basic product functions, the enrichment of value-added functions, and the improvement of application scenario solutions, especially tending to integrate with RTC. In the future, IM PaaS will carry out more in-depth and detailed development in terms of the diversity of product forms and the penetration of application scenarios. At the same time, manufacturers will expand overseas business with the growth of customer demand and further move towards global competition.
Main Function Points of IM PaaS
The basic capabilities centered on message transmission, and provide users with session management and friend relationship management functions
IM PaaS aims to serve developers in communication application building, and develops a functional layout around message and user management, providing the following capabilities: 1) Message transmission and related capabilities: users can achieve rapid interaction and information sharing through single chat, group chat, etc. , and perform operations such as deletion and translation on the message itself. 2) Session management capabilities: including functions such as chat session topping and unread counting. Users can pin important chat sessions to keep them at the top of the chat list for quick access and reply. 3) User and relationship management: Users can set personal profile information, easily add friends, establish contacts, and add certain users to the blacklist to limit interaction with them when necessary. At the same time, users can also create groups, invite other users to join, and manage the chat content and group members in the group.
The core value of IM PaaS
Provide stable and high-quality communication products, reduce development threshold and cost, and create high-quality user experience
IM PaaS is delivered in the form of API or SDK, which directly or indirectly brings rich value to developers, ISV/SI and end users: 1) Developers are the main service objects of IM PaaS and the primary experiencers of the value of IM PaaS . IM PaaS provides developers with global, scalable, and functionally stable communication support, allowing developers to carry out secondary development conveniently and flexibly, lowering the development threshold and saving a lot of time and cost. 2) ISV/SI is the indirect user of IM PaaS. By integrating IM capabilities, the product is interactive and creates more business value. 3) End users are the end users and beneficiaries of IM PaaS. After multiple rounds of development, testing and packaging, IM PaaS finally demonstrates its communication functions with applications as the carrier, allowing users to enjoy real-time, efficient and secure communication experience.
Demand background for the development of IM PaaS
Social entertainment applications continue to prosper, and instant messaging features are prominent
Communication is a rigid demand for Internet applications. Affected by the new crown epidemic, more and more communication behaviors have been transferred online, and the activity of social entertainment applications continues to rise. According to statistics, in 2022, the total annual time spent by global Android users on social applications will reach more than 20,000 hours, a year-on-year increase of 17%. In the same year, among the top 10 apps with monthly active users in the world, not only WhatsApp Messenger, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram are on the list, but most other non-instant messaging apps also have integrated IM functions. By providing users with convenient communication and sharing tools, Increase user stickiness and retention rate.
Cover the internal and external communication scenarios of the enterprise, and accelerate the penetration into the B-end market through integration with the office
In addition to 2C Internet applications, instant messaging also plays an important role in enterprise-level scenarios. For example, in marketing and customer service scenarios, it can help companies achieve goals such as reaching customers efficiently and improving user experience. With the advent of the hybrid office trend, enterprises' demand for office digitization has become increasingly prominent. Products such as Slack and Zoom provide enterprises with real-time communication tools, but for many medium and large enterprises, standardized SaaS products are often difficult to meet the needs, thus creating room for the penetration of IM PaaS in office scenarios. Based on instant messaging capabilities, enterprises can build a unified communication platform that conforms to their own business processes and brand tonality, and integrate with other business systems to realize remote office collaboration.
The metaverse application has taken shape, and puts forward new requirements for immersive experience and communication logic
According to survey data, nearly 60% of users are excited about the transition of daily activities to the metaverse, and connecting with people is the most important driving factor. C-end applications including Soul, Zaizai ZEPETO, etc. have become representatives of metaverse social interaction, users can interact in virtual scenes based on avatars; B-end applications can use spatial messages, directional messages, and tag messages, etc. Help users simulate a remote collaborative work environment with offline office types. In order to create a better metaverse interactive experience, in addition to the key technologies such as virtual rendering and real-time interaction that need to be broken through, the metaverse is a virtual world parallel to the real world, and the communication logic behind it also needs to be reshaped urgently. Discord, which has gradually evolved from a pure game community to a young cultural community, provides a reference for metaverse socialization, and its server-channel-sub-area design may become the base of future social forms.
Product form of IM PaaS—an overview
With four basic forms of single chat, group chat, chat room and Discord-like, it is embedded in entertainment, life and office applications to improve interactive fun and collaborative efficiency
Product form of IM PaaS
China focuses on pan-entertainment applications, while the United States focuses on enterprise-level scenarios, and there are certain differences in product capabilities
Based on the basic products of single chat, chat room, and group chat, due to the differences in culture and technology between China and the United States, IM PaaS vendors in the two countries have derived different development paths. American IM PaaS vendors tend to provide underlying communication capabilities for marketing and customer service scenarios, while Chinese vendors have explored more in the field of Internet pan-entertainment, such as packaging scenario-based solutions for high-frequency application scenarios such as social networking, games, and e-commerce. .
The rise of Discord drives the further evolution of IM products from group chat to ultra-large-scale virtual space
Since the outbreak, Discord, a social platform that started with game voice, quickly broke through the circle and became a new generation of Internet phenomenon-level products. With the expansion of application scenarios from games to general categories, Discord has gradually developed into a personal virtual space centered on interests, and is considered to be the social form with the most metaverse characteristics.
On the basis of group chat, Discord has further evolved to a super-large-scale or even unlimited number of people. It does not display the number of followers, and there is no algorithm recommendation. Users can freely join the circles they are interested in, or socialize with acquaintances in a private space, giving users a high degree of autonomy. Through the three-tier structure of server-channel-subzone, Discord has built a complete community system and created a good group sociality. The emergence of this new social model has also injected new vitality into the IM PaaS market. Most of the leading IM PaaS manufacturers have launched Discord-like products, such as: NetEase Yunxin’s Discord-like product circle group, Rongyun’s super group, Huanxin super community, etc., to help customers lower the technical threshold for building such communities.
WhatsApp is oriented towards organizational management and private domain operations, launching a community product with a secondary structure
In addition to Discord, in the second half of 2022, WhatsApp will launch a new product, the WhatsApp community, consisting of multiple groups, which also provides a reference for the evolution of the IM PaaS product form. The WhatsApp community expands the concept of "group" to a maximum of 5,000 people, allowing community administrators to communicate with members in multiple groups at the same time, and to send important notifications in a unified manner. Different from the highly free chat atmosphere of Discord, the WhatsApp community still adopts an invitation system, so it is more suitable for internal management of large-scale organizations such as clubs and schools, or private domain marketing between enterprises and users. Using the WhatsApp community to build a private domain operation system will help companies establish direct contact with users more efficiently, increase the participation of target audiences in different industries and regions, and promote the increase in sales conversion rate.
Application Scenarios of IM PaaS—Overview
Cooperate closely with real-time communication, focus on different value-added services in different scenarios, and improve the efficiency of internal and external communication
In most scenarios, the instant messaging function will be equipped with an instant messaging function, but instant messaging is used more frequently in internal corporate communication, customer service, and social interaction with strangers. When the users of IM PaaS are the internal developers of the enterprise, in terms of enterprise collaboration and marketing customer service, they pay more attention to function integration and supported deployment modes, so as to improve the efficiency of enterprise internal collaboration and strengthen the enterprise's attractiveness to external customers. In the scenario where the user is a developer in the Internet industry, 1) social entertainment, games, e-commerce and other scenarios pay more attention to the precipitation of personnel relationships and rich interactive experience for customers; 2) in Internet + education/medical industries, It can play an auxiliary role to help balance medical or educational resources, and strengthen the relationship between doctors and patients and the relationship between teachers and students.
Innovative Application Scenario of IM PaaS: Interactive Games
Group confrontation and light operation game scenarios require instant message interaction to improve player experience and stickiness
In the game scene, IM PaaS can meet the interaction needs of players to complete the overall logic of the game, and can also provide a place for the germination and development of social relationships, improving the stickiness in the later stage. Usually, in addition to basic IM functions, game application scenarios will also cooperate with IM value-added services such as characteristic sound effects, content review, role management, and RTC functions to create a richer interactive experience. In the basic message definition, there will also be settings that can insert special functions such as own equipment and pets. In specific scenarios, less communication functions are used in single-player confrontation environment (PVE) and single-player versus single-player (PVP), mainly because group confrontation has higher requirements for bottom-level performance and richness of top-level solutions. In addition, in game scenarios with heavy manipulation, real-time voice/call communication is generally the mainstay, supplemented by instant messaging. Therefore, in games with light manipulation, players are more likely to use instant messaging.
Innovative Application Scenarios of IM PaaS: Community of Interest
The construction of interest communities needs to pay attention to the pressure of large-scale message push on the server and the impact on customers.
The interest community is a chat application that is more suitable for large-scale users. In the application, multiple servers can be built according to large topics, and multiple channels can be built in the server according to subdivided topics of interest. Valuable viewpoints can be precipitated through content layering , to arouse user resonance and discussion, and avoid the situation where users are not interested in topics in large group chats and reduce activity. In interest communities, identity groups are usually set up to manage user permissions under servers/channels, so large-scale and complex management relationships have become the main pain points of interest communities. Therefore, in the comprehensive application scenario of the interest community, ensuring the efficiency of message push and ensuring that users do not need to accept explosive news is the key point of scenario construction.
Innovative Application Scenarios of IM PaaS: Metaverse Social
Combining real-time audio and video and digital human technology to build a highly immersive metaverse social
Compared with the traditional social mode, Metaverse Social emphasizes the sense of space and immersion. Its underlying logic is still centered on interest. In order to create a virtual third-space real-sensing experience, a secondary or tertiary structure similar to Discord can be introduced to allow users to create a highly free communication environment. In the process of building metaverse social networking, IM and RTC, as the underlying communication capabilities, need to transfer more client logic to the cloud, and optimize the design of message distribution, storage and other mechanisms to cope with the message explosion in the metaverse scenario . The virtual human will serve as the main body of social interaction in the metaverse to meet the needs of users for real-time interaction with virtual images. Users can define their own avatars by pinching their faces independently, changing clothes, etc., and highly simulate movements and expressions to achieve an unprecedented immersive social experience.
Global IM PaaS Market Size and Forecast
The IM PaaS market has entered a stage of steady growth, and large-scale model applications are expected to bring new growth points in the future
According to iResearch, the global instant messaging (IM) PaaS market size will be 3.05 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 18.9%. As the IM PaaS market matures, the overall growth tends to be stable. However, the popularity of Discord has stimulated users' demand for ultra-large-scale communities. While promoting the upgrading and iteration of IM product forms, it also brings about a reaction to the growth rate of IM PaaS. push. The rise of ChatGPT drives the combination of large language models and instant messaging products. In the future, IM PaaS vendors may help enterprise customers broaden their application scenarios by integrating with large models. It is estimated that by 2025, the global instant messaging (IM) PaaS market is expected to grow to 5.52 billion yuan.
The business model of IM PaaS
Expand value-added services and entertainment gameplay on the basis of basic functions + peak daily activity, and realize business monetization through multiple channels
At present, there are three commercialization paths for domestic IM PaaS manufacturers: 1) Basic products are divided into packages according to functions, priced according to monthly activities and usage, and value-added services are expanded around message content processing and communication behavior optimization, which is a general pricing model. 2) Drain traffic through IM, provide users with diversified entertainment methods to realize commercial realization, suitable for comprehensive manufacturers with multiple business lines and terminal application output. 3) Expand the RTC product line, and participate in functional integration through business cooperation, embed it in applications such as smart customer service and live video, and charge according to product usage.
IM PaaS industry chain and industry map
As the track matures, AI technical support and channel partners will become key partners in the industry chain
IM PaaS manufacturers are in the middle and back end of the industry chain. They establish cooperative relationships with technology, resource and hardware service providers upwards, and serve enterprises or individual developers downwards. They can also carry out secondary product development or Integrated and provided to end users in the form of out-of-the-box products. With the maturity of the IM market, the difference in the stability of IM products has narrowed, and the business layout of manufacturers has gradually expanded from IM to RTC, traditional communication, intelligent customer service/call center and other businesses. In the future, product depth and channel breadth will become one of the core elements of manufacturers' differentiated competition . Therefore, integrating the AI capabilities of third-party technology providers to improve product intelligence and expanding market coverage through channel partners will become the main focus of IM PaaS manufacturers.
Main Player Types and Core Competitiveness of IM PaaS
Communication cloud vendors focus on industry applications and scenario capabilities, and basic cloud vendors have stronger ecological strength
IM PaaS selection strategy
Comprehensive use scenarios and cost performance, choose manufacturers that can provide continuous and personalized services
After customers have IM PaaS usage needs, they should comprehensively consider the IM PaaS provider to be selected from the four dimensions of product functions, service capabilities, key technical indicators, and cost performance. First of all, product functions must have security guarantees, and their richness of functions should be sufficient to support their own business scenario demands. Secondly, the service of manufacturers is sustainable, that is, manufacturers with rich experience and reliable development prospects are preferred. In addition, if manufacturers have in-depth cooperation with ecological partners, they can better meet large-scale and vertical IM demand scenarios, and create personalized solutions with higher fit and smoother cross-system operation. Finally, although leading manufacturers have little difference in product basic technical indicators (reach rate, delay rate, concurrency), they can still add points to manufacturers by comparing detailed indicators as appropriate to achieve the optimal choice.
Prospects for the development space of IM PaaS industry
Technology integration improves product attractiveness and applicable scenarios, and the potential of high-dimensional immersive social interaction is yet to be released
From the perspective of the overall market, the communication needs of middle and high-income countries are relatively stable, and low-income countries will be the main growth force of Internet communication in the future. From the perspective of the supply side, most IM PaaS vendors are based on the convergence of IM, RTC and AIGC to enhance product function depth and scene breadth, and at the same time strengthen message security management capabilities, and develop towards the direction of metaverse non-sensing interconnection and immersive communication , to bring more surprises and novel experiences to users. From the demand side, the enterprise application of IM PaaS mainly focuses on collaborative office. Although the market is relatively saturated, it is still a scenario that enterprises just need, and will maintain stable growth in the future. There are many scenarios that can be expanded on the personal side, such as mining interest resonance to release user communication needs, adding AIGC capabilities in chat to assist in topic guidance and message management, combining emotion recognition or real-time translation in communication to achieve non-sense communication, etc. Users have a more intimacy and sense of belonging, and increase their willingness to communicate.
IM PaaS Industry Development Trends and Challenges
China's Internet is flourishing overseas, and IM PaaS needs to pay attention to issues such as compliance and localization
In the past few years, the influence and activity of Chinese Internet companies on a global scale have continued to increase. In addition to the continuous increase in the income of games going overseas, driven by leading manufacturers such as TikTok, the pace of Chinese Internet companies going overseas has further expanded to pan-entertainment fields such as video, social networking, audio, live broadcast, and graphics, showing a multi-point blossoming situation.
The overseas expansion of Internet companies has provided a good foundation for the global layout of Chinese IM PaaS manufacturers. With the changes in the international geopolitical situation, the importance of data security and compliance has become increasingly prominent. China's IM PaaS should first pay attention to the policy requirements of different regions in the process of going overseas. In addition, manufacturers also need to make targeted adaptations to the network infrastructure, terminal equipment, and operators of the destination country, and provide multilingual official websites, product documentation, and consoles. Due to differences in the economic environment, political background, and cultural customs of different countries, if IM PaaS manufacturers also have experience in operating C-end products in overseas markets, they will be able to avoid the above risks to a certain extent.
IM PaaS Industry Development Trends and Challenges
Continuously enrich functional components, further encapsulate solutions for common scenarios, and improve developer ease-of-use experience
Improving the ease of use experience of developers is the long-term focus of IM PaaS manufacturers' competition. This ease of use is mainly reflected in the integration of underlying basic capabilities, rich function component calls, and further introduction of solutions that better meet customer needs. . The integration of underlying capabilities reduces the time for developers to find RTC capabilities, and further enriches the scene components encapsulated in the upper layer, thereby improving development efficiency. In addition, more and more manufacturers provide scenario-based SDKs to provide developers with business-friendly API callbacks, and some manufacturers have begun to provide components that can be developed in the form of low-code, making product construction easier and more convenient. For the relatively hot demand for going overseas in the near future, some manufacturers also provide solutions for going overseas, as well as some security, small program and other solutions that are highly demanded by developers but have more detailed scenarios, so as to further meet the needs of developers.
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