A recent webinar hosted by Kaleido Intelligence discussed the travel eSIM opportunity for mobile network operators (MNOs), as conversation revolved around whether eSIMs should be regarded as a threat or opportunity to MNOs.
Jon King, Chief Commercial Officer and Nitin Bhas, Chief Analyst at Kaleido Intelligence moderated the webinar, which brought together Gregory Gundelfinger, CEO of Telna; Azad Singh, Chief Global Mobility Solutions at Reliance Jio; Emmanuel Bain, Senior Vice President at Console Connect and Regina Gonzalez, Roaming Business Manager, Telefónica to discuss this.
The webinar convened to discuss the recent results of Kaleido’s white paper on its recent survey on the travel eSIM market, having spoken to 5000 worldwide travellers. It forecast that the value of travel eSIMs and roaming retail spend will hit $30 billion by 2028, with an additional $6 billion in wholesale roaming revenues. Since the decline of travel during the pandemic, the market has since recovered.
Having conducted these travel surveys since 2021 to understand traveller behaviours and connectivity needs post-pandemic, Bhas noted the “increasing awareness” among travellers for travel eSIMs, “which is giving rise to this increasing adoption that we’re seeing with the international travel market; it’s on track to exceed 2019 levels by the end of 2024,” he said.
Bhas explained that there is an observed overlap between travellers who use traditional roaming but also Wi-Fi or travel eSIMs: “Consumers, when it comes to travel connectivity, they are flexible, in that they will use roaming when it’s convenient and affordable, but they will rely on alternatives when that is simply not the case.” Pricing is a main driver for travel eSIMs; if they’re at a low cost and convenient and perceived to provide a better service, travellers are more likely to adopt them, according to findings from the survey.
On being asked their perceptions on travellers, Gundelfinger from Telna said that the growing adoption of travel eSIMs is being seen as an opportunity from their side: “Now this is the time of data. What we are seeing is eSIM is resonating with customers that are prepaid. We see that there has been a huge void in the market that network operators have never addressed with a prepaid roaming solution.”
“From an MNO point of view, we had the debate: is it a threat or is it an opportunity?” added Gonzalez from Telefónica. “We’d like to say it’s an opportunity because there are now new options to create income. We also believe travel eSIM is going to coexist with improved roaming offers.”
Three themes were explored in the webinar; what the impact of travel eSIM has on roaming; the value proposition for travel eSIM; and the outlook. Because findings from Kaleido’s survey showed silent roamers – characterised as travellers who don’t use their phone for roaming at all, or connect to Wi-Fi – are driving growth in eSIM, Bhas asked the panel if they thought travel eSIMs were impacting on traditional roaming revenues for MNOs as part of the first theme.
“It’s not a cannibalisation, for us it’s enabling us to target the silent roamer market … I’ll say it’s a wake up call,” answered Singh.
On being asked whether she thought travel eSIMs are a “wake up call,” to use Singh’s wording, or driving the need to reimagine their regional roaming proposition, Gonzalez said: “We believe it’s both. If we do nothing, of course it’s going to cannibalise our roaming revenues. But if we are able to improve retail roaming offers, if we work on the way we offer roaming to the customers [it’ll be an opportunity].”
“I think there are many ways you can look at this, but I think it’s an evolution of how roaming is distributed,” added Gundelfinger. “With eSIM it’s totally digital, it’s something totally new. It’s an opportunity.”
As part of the second theme – whether travel eSIM have a defined value proposition compared with traditional roaming – Bain explained the use cases facilitated by eSIM make its value proposition clear: “It’s faster to swap from one SIM to the eSIM rather than swapping from one network to the other when you’re roaming. There are even further use cases we’ll see in the years to come.”
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