Google Says Over 1 Billion RCS Messages Sent in the US Daily

An anonymous reader shares a report: During the Android Show leading up to Google I/O, Google on Tuesday offered a brief update on the adoption of the RCS (Rich Communication Services) protocol, an upgrade to SMS that offers high-resolution photos and videos, typing indicators, read receipts, improved group chat, and more. The company shared that the messaging standard now supports over a billion messages per day in the U.S.

This metric is based on an average of the last 28 days, Google noted. The stat is notable because Google fought for years to get Apple to adopt support for RCS on iOS, allowing for better communication between Android and Apple devices. Previously, iPhone users who received texts from friends on Android had to deal with blurry videos and images, and couldn't as easily manage group chats when their green-bubbled friends joined. Unlike with iMessage, group chats with Android users couldn't be renamed, nor could people be added or removed, and you couldn't exit when you wanted. Emoji reactions also didn't work properly, leading to annoying texts to let you know how an Android user reacted, instead of just displaying their emoji reaction directly.

Google Tracking It All

[WankerWeasel]

And that's because Google forces all Android phones to send their RCS messages through Google's own servers. This allows them to know who you're messaging and when, which is valuable data they can further use for advertising and more, especially paired with things like your location and more.

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[africanrhino]

Shhh, tread carefully , the google marketing workers here will downvote your comment if you talk too loud..

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[cayenne8]

I have a few Android friends....do they need to go into their settings (mostly some older phones)...and specifically set them to use RCS?

In some of our group chats...they don't seem to be able to use these "new features" that I've long used on my iPhone.....so, curious if they need to change their settings?

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[WankerWeasel]

Could be down to their carriers or their phone brand. RCS is a protocol but Google uses their own modified version of it. Normally, messages would go through their carrier RCS server but Android forces messages to instead use Google's servers.

Your friends may have to check to see what RCS-related features they have enabled. There are options around if they do or don't use such with group messages.

Re:Google Tracking It All

[MBGMorden]

IIRC its you as an Apple user that would have to enable RCS (Apple didn't support this at all until recently). If you don't enable RCS then communications to/from Android users would still be over regular SMS.

Re:Google Tracking It All

[UnknowingFool]

Unfortunately Apple conforming to RCS does not mean iMessage is compatible entirely with Google anytime soon as Google has long called their protocol "RCS" even though they added their own nonstandard extensions to standard RCS. For example, Google uses the Signal protocol for E2EE but Apple does not use that protocol. The latest RCS specification (3.0) which was released in March 2025 added E2EE but I am not aware of the details of what protocol it implements.

Re: Google Tracking It All

[Big Hairy Gorilla]

So they decrypt your message and reencrypt to send out by signal protocol?

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[Gleenie]

The RCS standard did not include E2EE.

GSMA standardised adopted Google's E2EE protocol as a standard a few months back. However: in a lot of countries, including mine, telecommunications carriers have interception obligations that prohibit them from implementing any encryption which they cannot remove in order to provide clear text to authorities. As Google is not (for probably political reasons) classed as a telecommunications carrier, they can get away with it.

I am not an encryption expert by any means but my reading of the standard suggests

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[Jason Earl]

Yes. And they probably need to use Google Messages and not whatever Samsung (or whatever) sets by default. The Apple user also has to have iOS 18 and a carrier that supports RCS for iPhones, this is definitely not all of them, although the big three now support RCS on iPhone.

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[Rinnon]

You'll get annoying pop ups encouraging you to use RCS but you aren't actually forced to opt in (yet). If you use a third party messaging app, it may not support RCS. If you use Windows Phone Link it will also not support RCS.

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[kqs]

As far as I know, Google only "forces" RCS through Google's servers when the service provider has decided to not provide their own servers. Google only made their own servers because service providers were not providing them, and now some of them are still not providing them. (And I think a few have contracted with Google to use Google's servers.)

I think that iPhones will only use RCS if service providers have designated RCS servers.

If you have evidence that Google "forces all Android phones to send their

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[WankerWeasel]

If you use the default text messaging app on Android, Google forces use of their RCS servers through the Jibe hub.Additionally, Google doesn't openly make people aware of which servers are being used. The only way the carrier server is used is if the Universal Profile is configured and the carriers own messaging app is utilized. If the user installs Google Messages with RCS support via Jibe, messages go through Google’s servers.

https://developers.google.com/... [google.com]

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[kqs]

The page you linked is "RCS Business Messaging" and is a marketing front page with zero technical details and no mentions of "server" or Jibe. Maybe try providing a link that actually says what you are claiming?

The Wikipedia RCS page says "Google Jibe provides RCS service directly if carrier does not" which seems to directly contradict your whiney conspiracy theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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[WankerWeasel]

Oh yes, Wikipedia is a very legit source for technical information about messaging platform implementation. If you're so concerned about it, look into it. What I've shared is fact.

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[ceoyoyo]

Google doesn't force use of their RCS servers, but they do default to it. That's partly, as you say, because carriers were hit and miss about providing RCS themselves, but also because Google doesn't actually implement RCS, they implement their own proprietary extended version of it.

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[kqs]

"Proprietary extended version" is exactly how every open protocol in the world has ever worked. You implement the base protocol so that you can interoperate with everyone, then add your optional extensions with the hope that the extension will be a part of the protocol in the future. And "proprietary" is doing a LOT of work here given that Google's E2EE has been open from the beginning, and is now well documented and will likely be in a future version of the protocol.

Also, do you have a source for "defaul

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[thegarbz]

This allows them to know who you're messaging and when

That's a great conspiracy but the reality is they never needed RCS for this. You already run their OS, they have completely administrative control, no RCS needed.

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[dstwins]

Sorry, but no.. RCS isn't forcing path to google's services..

The reason google wants RCS is it makes it feature parity between iphone and android and thus less of a reason for some people to stick with iphone (ie: if everything is "even" meaning cross device communication, then the ecosystem you choose is based on preference rather than a lack of feature) which actually provides a larger device footprint (which DOES benefit google and by extension android phone manufacturers).

Because RCS is an OPEN STANDARD

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[WankerWeasel]

Ha, that's all well and good in theory. But Google doesn't utilize the standard open source RCS. They have their own implementation which allows for capture of additional data and utilizes non-standard features only available through Google's specific implementation.

And no, they do not use carrier or other servers in most cases. If you use Google Messages, which has more than 5 billion downloads and have RCS enabled (which Google said this year is enabled by more than 1 billion users) then it will only use

This "standard" is 0% open

[Khopesh]

The RCS "standard" has no reference implementation and no support in the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), whose components are the basis for myriads of third-party forks like the Fossify suite [github.com] as well as the stock apps for pretty much all Android forks. As far as I know, only a few RCS clients have ever been created, and none of them are open-sourced: Google's, Apple's (which is new), Samsung's ("partially discontinued" and no longer on Google Play as of January [androidauthority.com]), +Message (only works in Japan), and a handful that only work in China and on HarmonyOS or HyperOS.

With that in mind, it appears Google now has a view of pretty much every RCS in the world, especially outside of China and Japan. While they may not have your content, they have your relationship graph, which is very powerful metadata, especially when they combine it with everything else they know about you.

(I wonder if Samsung would be willing to open-source their Samsung Messages app...)

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[kqs]

The standard seems 100% open, including the E2EE piece. There is no open source implementation, but that is a completely different thing.

Note that I have never tried to access the RCS standard to prove its openness, because I really don't care. But I've seen multiple statements that the RCS standard is open, so I suspect you're just abusing the term "open standard" to mean "open implementation" to bash Google (or RCS, or E2EE, or just to whine, I have no idea).

Also: I am not happy that there are no open

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[Khopesh]

Here is the top hit in my query to find a source for you: Stop telling people that RCS is an open standard. It's 100% proprietary. [reddit.com] Quoting it:

I've noticed a few r/android users, including some redditors, really love to claim that RCS is an open standard. I heard it so much, I started to just assume it was true. Unfortunately, this claim is entirely made up, and it's been repeated so many times here that it's kind of taken on a life of its own. It's one of those things that you don't seem to hear on other p

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[kqs]

I mean, it's fine to define "open standard" as "MUST HAVE no license, no patent issues, complete and perfect documentation, and a perfect open implementation". And hey, all of those are good and are preferred. But saying "ha ha not open because it doesn't meet my definition of open" seems disingenuous. (And let's not even start with the arguments about "is this open implementation REALLY open by my definition of open"; I've seen enough of those BSD-vs-GPL arguments for a lifetime.)

So, saying "This standa

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[Gleenie]

Note that I have never tried to access the RCS standard to prove its openness, because I really don't care.

They're a pain in the arse to find on the GSMA site, but they are indeed there to download for free. This is the E2EE spec, which they adopted from Google: https://www.gsma.com/solutions... [gsma.com]

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[dstwins]

The reason there are not many ASOP clients is because its being implemented at the OS level and not the application level.. And thus very little reason work on a 3rd party one. Also while the RCS is an OIS (Open Industry Standard).. it doesn't mean everyone is going to spend thousands of hours on developing a 3rd party client (for what purpose?)..

So yes, its open.. but like Ethernet, USB, Bluetooth and a number of open specs, to actually be compatible and validate the intercommunication isn't for the weak

Which "RCS" do they mean?

[UnknowingFool]

Google has for years now called their messaging standard "RCS" which is an extension of the GSMA standard RCS or Universal Profile. Google RCS has added things like their own implementation of E2EE which had not been defined in Universal Profile specifications until recently. Other features like message responses have been added to the specifications over the years but may not be implemented by everyone yet.

Google Voice anyone?

[bandi13]

Yet Google Voice still lacks RCS support. Soooo, there's that.

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[omnichad]

Google Voice sends and delivers from the cloud. But Google is also pushing E2EE for RCS. I don't think this will go anywhere until they extend E2EE to support multiple devices for one recipient the way that iMessage does.

Only one billion?

[DodgyGeezer]

WhatsApp was sending 100 billion daily messages back in 2020, although thatâ(TM)s globally.
https://x.com/wcathcart/status... [x.com]

Presumably Google only mentioned daily RCS messages in the US because everybody else is using WhatsApp.

RCS Failure

[darkain]

RCS has also been a huge failure, at least within my family. Routinely, the messages outright fail to send. And without looking closely in the messaging app, its hard to tell they didn't send. And even more-so, they've made it more difficult to find the right place to tap on the impossibly small icon to swap back to SMS/MMS just to get a message to someone else.

And...

[Randseed]

One billion RCS messages daily. And 990 million are spam, political ads, automated crap, and phishing scams claiming that I've won something from Harbor Freight or I have to pay a toll or my car registration may be terminated. Sure.