Twilio has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2008 and it has become the largest Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) business by revenue.

The company’s annual revenue in 2023 exceeded $4bn, and its number of active customers grew to more than 316,000 in Q2 FY2024 (ended June 30, 2024). The growth has partly been due to acquisitions and boosted by enterprises pivoting their customer engagement to digital channels during the Covid19 pandemic.

However, due to less favourable economic conditions since early 2023, CPaaS providers including Twilio experienced a significant slowdown in revenue growth. This led to business reviews which included reorienting its business strategy and focus, reducing costs to improve margins, and rationalising solution portfolios.

Twilio origins

Twilio started as a communications platform but the company had evolved its business before the pandemic to become a customer engagement solution provider. This evolution saw the company introduced solutions targeting different customer engagement functions including Flex (for customer support teams), Frontline (for sales teams), and Engage (within Segment for marketing teams).

While customer engagement remains the core business of Twilio, the company is now entering another chapter leveraging on data and AI.

The development of generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) has already created use cases and solutions to enhance customer engagement. Twilio has been quick to tap the technology to enhance its solutions as well. It is now combining its communications platform with contextual data and AI to deliver real-time, personalized experiences. This means finding more meaningful ways to integrate its communications platform with Segment (its customer data platform business) and emerging AI technologies.

How well do you really know your competitors?

Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.

View profiles in store

Company Profile – free sample

Thank you!

Your download email will arrive shortly

Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample

We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form

By GlobalData

Submit

UK USA Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Democratic Republic of the Congo Cook Islands Costa Rica Côte d"Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territory Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Réunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates US Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam British Virgin Islands US Virgin Islands Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Kosovo

Industry * Academia & Education Aerospace, Defense & Security Agriculture Asset Management Automotive Banking & Payments Chemicals Construction Consumer Foodservice Government, trade bodies and NGOs Health & Fitness Hospitals & Healthcare HR, Staffing & Recruitment Insurance Investment Banking Legal Services Management Consulting Marketing & Advertising Media & Publishing Medical Devices Mining Oil & Gas Packaging Pharmaceuticals Power & Utilities Private Equity Real Estate Retail Sport Technology Telecom Transportation & Logistics Travel, Tourism & Hospitality Venture Capital

Tick here to opt out of curated industry news, reports, and event updates from Verdict.

Submit and download

Visit our Privacy Policy for more information about our services, how we may use, process and share your personal data, including information of your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications. Our services are intended for corporate subscribers and you warrant that the email address submitted is your corporate email address.

Key partnerships

Twilio has so far formed partnerships with OpenAI, Google, Frame AI, and Deepgram to embed AI into its solutions. It has also introduced AI-related products and capabilities such as CustomerAI (the use of LLMs and customer data that flows through Twilio’s platform to better understand customers and improve customer relationships).

Unified Profiles and Agent Copilot (Unified Profiles enables the collection and activation of real-time, consented data for personalised interactions while Agent Copilot applies AI to this data to enhance customer service agent productivity); and Linked Audiences (an audience builder tool to integrate real-time data enabling marketing teams to engage with data, to quickly create and refine audience lists without database expertise).

These products/features allow Twilio to further enhance its value propositions for marketing, sales, and customer service personas; and establish differentiators against other CPaaS vendors. GlobalData’s forecast for CPaaS indicates a CAGR of about 19% to reach $35.5bn in 2027.

Growth opportunities

There are still significant growth opportunities in the enterprise segment as well as geographies. However, the market is also evolving rapidly as CPaaS vendors expand the scope of their solutions to provide more comprehensive customer engagement and workflow automation solutions, not just providing APIs for developers.

Twilio is keeping pace with the changing market demand, and it is also differentiating with its CDP and AI integration. However, competition is also intensifying since a few CPaaS players have also gained scale through acquisitions and organic expansion. This also means more options for businesses looking to leverage AI to achieve better customer engagements.