Hands up. Who has been in a business meeting where the host is constantly using three letter acronyms and you are sat there frantically scribbling them down thinking, “I’ll google that when I get back to my desk”?

You are not alone! But it now seems like these three letter abbreviations have escaped from the board room and into our daily lives – in particular within the mobile technology sector.

It’s not surprising really when you think about it. Mobile tech is moving pretty fast. So fast, in fact, there is clearly no longer enough time in the day to say words in their entirety. Take A2P for example. Simply put, this means application to person, but I’m not sure the translation of the abbreviation helps people understand what this is.

Messaging, for most people, is their preferred method of contact. It puts the receiver in control to reply when it is convenient for them; not to mention they are universally received on all makes of mobile phone and doesn’t rely on you being in the same country as the sender.

Business have now taken the hint and, using the smartest mobile tech, now contact their clients or customers via the A2P method. Let’s take banking as an example. You may have a setting on your online banking to warn you when your account goes below a certain amount. The “bank” texts you and lets you know you have exceeded it and politely suggests you should maybe correct it. The bank in this scenario is the web based application, who then contacts the person (you).

A2P messaging is a growing market, due to its flexibility, diversity and ability to capitalise on our planet’s increasing population and rising smart phone connections. Interestingly, there have been many studies and reports carried out on A2P messaging trends and the general consensus is that application to person messaging traffic will overtake person to person (or P2P!) by 2018.

At a recent messaging and SMS event in London, speakers there were bold enough to put the A2P market into cold, hard figures. The suggested revenue for A2P during 2015 was $60 billion and their projection for 2018 was more than $70 billion. Not bad when you consider the A2P market was brand new in 2010.

So, each time you buy something online and opt to receive a text confirmation, get a reminder from your hairdressers about your upcoming appointment or even those devilishly tempting texts on a Friday from a pizza company, be safe in the knowledge you are very much part of the messaging boom that is, A2P.