Travel eSIMs and telcos – Friends and foes

Growing demand for travel eSIMs is opening up new opportunities and intensifying competition. Telcos must choose how to participate in the expanding market: launch travel eSIM propositions or rethink roaming to provide a more personalised customer experience, convenience and value to travellers

While traditional removable SIM cards are widely used by mobile network operators to authenticate devices connecting to their networks, they are gradually being replaced by eSIMs, which reside permanently inside the device. These eSIMs can be reprogrammed over-the-air, enabling the device to connect to alternative mobile networks without the need to swap out the SIM card. This convenience is helping to drive the recent rapid growth of the travel eSIM market – the focus of this report.

If you are not a subscriber, enter your details below to download an extract of the report

While they do not generally support network-based voice calls and messages, travel eSIMs typically enable an end user to pre-pay for a specific amount of mobile data in a specific country. As a result, the end user can access Internet-based voice and messaging services (such as WhatsApp) as well as other apps and websites. In this way, the customer can avoid paying the roaming charges levied by their domestic telco and reduce the need to find Wi-Fi hotspots they can connect to.

This report explores how specialist players and neobanks are driving demand for eSIMs, before considering the strategic implications for telcos and outlining how different telcos are responding to this competitive threat. It also makes some high-level recommendations for telcos, regarding how to compete in the travel eSIM market in the near-term and how to shore up their position in the broader connectivity market in the medium- to long-term.

• Executive summary
• Introduction
• eSIMs are finally taking off
  • Strong demand for travel eSIMs
  • Neobanks push into travel eSIMs
• Opportunities and challenges for telcos
  • Telcos’ strategic dilemma
  • Develop white label propositions
  • Launch telco-branded travel eSIMs
  • Make existing roaming propositions competitive
  • Protect margins in the legacy roaming business
• Conclusions
  • What happens next?
  • Recommendations for telcos

• New MVNOs: Challenger brands and lessons from the UK market
• Super apps: An attractive, yet elusive opportunity
• Key success factors for capturing the subscription marketplace opportunity

  

---