Here is the evidence, with the source attached to every number. Travel eSIM revenue grew 85% in a single year and wholesale roaming revenue is forecast to double. What follows is what is genuinely established, what is a projection, and what is practitioner folklore you should treat with suspicion — including our own commercial interest in telling you the market is large.
All four figures are sourced below. The first two are research-house projections, not audited results — we say so again at the foot of this page.
Two curves have to cross for this market to work. People have to travel, and their handsets have to be capable. Both are moving in the same direction, and the second one has only just started.
International tourist arrivals reached 1.52 billion in 2025, up 4% and roughly 60 million more than 2024. International tourism receipts came in at about USD 1.9 trillion, up 5%. This is not a recovery story any more; it is a record, and it is the base on which every connectivity forecast sits.
Source: UN Tourism — international tourist arrivals up 4% in 2025.
Growth is uneven by region, which matters more for a wholesale business than the global total does. Europe remains the largest destination region at 793 million arrivals (+4%), the Americas stand at 218 million (+1%), and Africa grew fastest at 81 million (+8%). Regional mix is what determines which wholesale rates you will actually be buying against.
Source: Xinhua — regional 2025 arrival figures.
Device adoption is the gating factor, and it is accelerating sharply. eSIM phones accounted for 37% of global smartphone sales in 2025 and are forecast to reach 48% in 2026. The installed base lags sales, which is precisely why the opportunity is still early: most capable handsets in the field have never had a travel profile activated on them.
Sources: Trusted Connectivity Alliance · Kaleido Intelligence · Counterpoint Research
Shipments up 18% while profile downloads rose 43% tells you the market is not being driven by more hardware. It is being driven by more people activating on hardware they already own — which is exactly the behaviour a distribution channel can influence, and the reason a retail brand can grow faster than the handset cycle.
Four forecast sets, two charts. Every figure is a projection made by a research house, and projections in this sector have historically been revised in both directions. Treat them as directional, not as a business case.
Source: Juniper Research, October 2025. The 2030 figure is a projection, not a result. 2025 revenue of USD 1.8 bn represents 85% growth on 2024.
Source: The Business Research Company. 31.3% CAGR from 2025 to 2030. Both the 2026 and 2030 figures are projections.
| Measure | From | To | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel eSIM revenue | USD 989 m (2024) | USD 8.7 bn (2030) | The consumer-facing product you would resell. Grew 85% in 2025 to USD 1.8 bn, then compounds to roughly nine times the 2024 level by 2030. Juniper Research |
| Wholesale roaming revenue | USD 9 bn (2024) | USD 20 bn (2028) | The layer you would be buying from. The market you sit in is larger than the retail travel eSIM market, and it is growing whether or not travel eSIM takes share. Juniper Research, January 2025 |
| Retail roaming revenue | USD 13.4 bn (2025) | USD 20.9 bn (2029) | The spend you are competing for. Roaming revenue keeps growing even as travel eSIM takes volume from it — because total travel grows faster than the per-GB price falls. Juniper Research |
| Travel eSIM price advantage | Today | ~75% cheaper per GB by 2029 | The single most useful number on this page. The switch is not driven by novelty — it is driven by price per gigabyte, and the gap is forecast to hold. Juniper Research |
| Enterprise eSIM management | USD 2.21 bn (2025) | USD 8.63 bn (2030) | 31.3% CAGR. Corporate buyers pay for management, control and billing rather than for gigabytes — a different and stickier revenue line. The Business Research Company |
| eSIM connections | 500 m (2024) | 4.5 bn (2030) | Activation on capable handsets is forecast to reach 75% by 2030. The gap between capable and activated is the market you would be selling into. Kaleido Intelligence |
Every figure in this table is a third-party estimate or forecast. None of them is a result you can bank, and none of them tells you what share of that revenue a new channel entrant can realistically win.
Three things happened that were not in anyone's 2023 model. Together they moved eSIM from a niche product for frequent travellers to the default format in new handsets.
In October 2025 MIIT approved a nationwide smartphone eSIM pilot. All three carriers launched eSIM service simultaneously, and Huawei, OPPO and vivo committed to eSIM models. The world's largest handset market moved in a single quarter.
The iPhone 18 Pro generation is eSIM-only in twelve markets — the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, Japan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. In those markets there is no physical alternative for a traveller to fall back on.
Source: MacObserver — the full list.
At 37% of global smartphone sales in 2025, rising to a forecast 48% in 2026, eSIM is already the standard format in flagship launches and the only format in twelve markets — and it is closing on half of all new phones sold worldwide.
Source: Counterpoint Research · see also Trusted Connectivity Alliance.
These three developments interact. The China pilot switches on a domestic device base of enormous size, and every one of those new eSIM handsets is a device that can hold a travel profile. The same device base then leaves the country: outbound Chinese travel is one of the largest source markets in the world, and until now it has been served largely by roaming and by physical cards bought at the airport.
A supplier with a Guangzhou network core and direct China Mobile and China Unicom interconnect is structurally advantaged on exactly that traffic. It is not a marketing claim — it is the difference between buying mainland capacity at one remove and terminating it directly, and it shows up in the cost per gigabyte you are quoted for outbound-China and Greater Bay Area routes.
The timing is the point. The device base switches on inside China at the same moment that outbound demand returns to record levels. A channel that waits for the market to be obvious will be buying capacity after the wholesale rates have adjusted to it.
Build the China and Greater Bay Area routes first, with a supplier that owns or directly interconnects mainland capacity, and treat them as the pilot volume. Bundle them with the destinations your customers most often combine with a China trip — Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore.
Then expand the rate card outward on proven volume, rather than launching sixty destinations at a rate you have not tested and hoping the mix works out.
This is a crowded market with very different kinds of participant. Some sell you a platform. Some sell you connectivity. One of them used to be only a consumer brand and is now competing for your customers.
| Player | What they actually offer | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1GLOBAL | White-label eSIM and physical SIM, domestic plans in 10 countries, 200+ roaming destinations, 600+ roaming agreements and GSMA SAS-SM accreditation. A telecom-as-a-service proposition aimed squarely at partners rather than consumers. | 1GLOBAL — telco as a service |
| eSIM Go | White-label management API with a downloadable Excel rate sheet, a minimum account top-up of USD 250, 12-month bundle validity, usage webhooks at 50/80/100% of allowance and revoke-and-return-to-inventory. The most transparent packaging of the wholesale offer we have seen published. | eSIM Go — building your own proposition |
| BICS | Travel eSIM for MNOs: carrier-grade connectivity and roaming enablement for operators adding a travel proposition to their own portfolio. | BICS — travel eSIM for MNO |
| Airalo | Raised USD 220 m at a valuation above USD 1 bn, with over 20 million users in 200+ countries. It stated it will use the capital to provide connectivity to companies — which makes it a wholesale competitor, not only a consumer brand. This is the most consequential competitive shift on this page. | The Business Times |
| Holafly | Over USD 500 m cumulative revenue, roughly USD 200 m in 2024, more than 15 million eSIMs sold and support in 18 languages. A consumer brand at real scale, and evidence that a support-heavy operating model can still work if the price point is high enough. | Holafly — media hub |
| Saily | A consumer travel eSIM brand distributed through a very large existing app and privacy-tool user base. It does not publish a wholesale rate card or partner programme terms, so it competes for the same end traveller without offering you a supply relationship. | No public partner documentation |
| Telna | Connectivity as a service: wholesale eSIM and roaming enablement for operators, brands and partners who want to package connectivity under their own name. | Telna — connectivity as a service |
No major eSIM wholesaler publishes a public per-gigabyte rate card. Rates are disclosed only under NDA, after a qualification call, and usually after you have told them your volumes. That is not a small detail — it means you cannot comparison-shop this market from a website, and any supplier who refuses to put a rate card in writing is asking you to buy on trust.
We publish indicative regional rates on this site precisely because the alternative is a market where buyers cannot tell whether they are being quoted a fair price. Published rates are also why we can hold a rate for a committed volume in writing.
Vendor list as published by Juniper Research, October 2025. Inclusion is Juniper's assessment, not our endorsement.
This is the part most market reports leave out. What you buy at, what you can sell at, and which cost lines quietly destroy the margin on a cheap product.
Source: DEV Community — the economics of running an eSIM marketplace. These are practitioner-reported and indicative. They are not a carrier rate card, and they are not our rates. A formal margin model requires your own rate card, negotiated for your volumes and destinations.
| Destination | Retail price (USD) | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Turkey, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy | 2.29 | The current floor for a mainstream 1 GB / 7-day product in a competitive market. |
| United States | 2.86 | Higher wholesale cost, but also a market where the twelve-market eSIM-only device base is largest. |
| Thailand | 2.86 | Cheap wholesale, strong retail price — the healthiest spread in this table. |
| Japan | 3.43 | High-volume destination with a demonstrated willingness to pay above the floor. |
| United Arab Emirates | 4.58 | Highest reference point here, consistent with a premium short-break and business-travel mix. |
Source: Simology — retail reference points for 1 GB / 7-day products. Retail prices are observed market reference points, not recommended prices, and they move.
| Line | Basis | USD per unit |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price | A 5 GB / 30-day Asia bundle, priced in line with the retail references above | 15.00 |
| Wholesale data cost | 5 GB at an indicative USD 0.25 per GB, mid-range for Asia | −1.25 |
| Profile provisioning fee | USD 0.05–0.20 per eSIM issued, midpoint taken | −0.13 |
| Customer support | ~20% of sales raise a ticket, 15 minutes per ticket | −0.75 |
| Refunds | A 5% refund rate on a USD 15 product | −0.75 |
| Payment processing | ~3% plus USD 0.30 per transaction | −0.75 |
| FX and settlement | 2–3% on the wholesale cost | −0.03 |
| Contribution | Before marketing, overhead, chargebacks and bad debt | 11.34 |
| The same cost stack on a cheap product | USD 2.29 product | USD 1.50 product |
|---|---|---|
| Retail price | 2.29 | 1.50 |
| Data, provisioning, support, refunds, processing and FX | −1.57 | −1.52 |
| Contribution before marketing | 0.72 | −0.02 |
The arithmetic is the argument: the support, refund and processing lines are close to fixed per transaction, so they consume roughly two thirds of a USD 2.29 sale and all of a USD 1.50 one. This is why payment processing at roughly 3% plus USD 0.30 makes sub-USD 2 products structurally poor, and why the volume end of the market is a supply-chain game rather than a pricing game.
The wholesale cost ranges, the provisioning fee, the support rate and the refund rate in this section are practitioner-reported and indicative. They come from public write-ups by people operating eSIM marketplaces, not from a carrier rate card, and they will differ from your own numbers.
Two operational facts from the same source deserve emphasis because they are strategy, not trivia: wholesale rates can change on 30 days' notice, and a supplier with no notice clause can move your margin after you have published a price to your customers. Ask for the notice period in writing before you build a campaign on a rate.
A formal margin model requires your own rate card. We will build one with you — but we will not pretend a public article is one.
Four practical conclusions, each tied to a number above rather than to an opinion.
1.52 billion international arrivals in 2025 and 37% of new phones sold being eSIM-capable mean the traveller and the device already exist. Your problem is distribution and pricing, not market education. That is a much better problem to have.
Wholesale roaming goes from USD 9 bn to USD 20 bn by 2028, and enterprise eSIM management grows at 31.3% CAGR to USD 8.63 bn by 2030. Corporate and wholesale channels grow faster and churn slower than consumer app sales — and they are less exposed to a single brand outspending you.
The October 2025 MIIT eSIM pilot switches on the device base at the same time as record outbound travel. A supplier with an owned Guangzhou core and direct China Mobile and China Unicom interconnect prices that traffic from its own cost base. Start your pilot on the routes where that advantage is real.
A ~20% support rate at 15 minutes per ticket and a 5% refund rate cost more than the data on a small bundle. Build for activation reliability, self-service installation and a rate card with a notice period — or a growing topline will not produce a growing contribution.
Airalo raised USD 220 m at a valuation above USD 1 bn and stated it will use the capital to provide connectivity to companies. The best-known consumer brand in this market has declared its intention to compete for your channel. If you are choosing a supplier, ask what happens to your margin when your supplier's largest competitor becomes your supplier's largest competitor and a direct B2B vendor.
Not everything on this page is equally solid, and it would be dishonest to present it as if it were.
Market sizing, device adoption and regulatory figures come from research houses, industry bodies and public authorities — Juniper Research, Counterpoint Research, Kaleido Intelligence, Trusted Connectivity Alliance, The Business Research Company, UN Tourism and national statistics agencies. They are citable, but the forward-looking ones are still projections: a 2030 figure is a model, not a result, and this sector's forecasts have been revised in both directions before now.
Wholesale rate ranges, profile provisioning fees, support-cost estimates, refund rates and activation-failure observations are practitioner-reported. They come from public write-ups by people who operate eSIM marketplaces. They describe real experience, but they are self-reported, unpublished, un-audited and they vary enormously by route, volume and supplier. Treat every one of them as indicative, and replace them with your own rate card before you build a business case on them.
On activation failure rates specifically: we searched for an independent, third-party study quantifying eSIM activation failure as a percentage and did not find one. None is quoted on this page. The industry consensus that activation problems are the dominant support cost is widely repeated but not, as far as we can establish, independently measured — so we describe it as a structural risk and a design priority, not as a statistic.
We would rather you trusted the parts of this page that are sourced than be impressed by a total that is not.
