Whether were receiving a boarding pass for a flight or chatting with friends and family, SMS (better known as text messaging) is a universal way for us to stay connected. But despite its ubiquity, SMS hasnt evolved to take advantage of all the features that smartphones enable today. We believe its important to innovate in messaging standards, so weve been working with the mobile industry on an initiative to upgrade SMS through a universal standard called RCS (Rich Communications Services), bringing more enhanced features to the standard messaging experience on mobile devices. Today, were taking a significant step toward making RCS messaging universally available to users across the world with 27 carriers and device manufacturers launching RCS to Android users with Google.
Following our partnerships with Sprint, Rogers, and Telenor, today were announcing that Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Globe are committed to launching RCS messaging powered by the Jibe RCS cloud from Google and will be preloading Android Messages (formerly called Messenger for Android) as the standard native messaging app for their subscribers. Were also announcing that the Vodafone Group RCS service is supporting Android Messages and has already launched across 10 markets for Vodafone subscribers globally.
These partners have also committed to interconnecting through the Jibe RCS hub so that RCS messages are delivered to subscribers across carrier networks, helping RCS messaging become truly universal. Were now partnering with carriers representing more than 1B subscribers worldwide.