Author:
Mike Bromwich, CTO & Founder
It’s fair to say that consumer eSIMs, which are based on a standard called SGP.22, have turned roaming behaviour on its head over the past few years. Prior to this, the only options available to travellers were to accept the often punitive roaming rates offered by their domestic SIM provider, switch to another physical SIM whilst overseas, or rely on WiFi whilst overseas.
The emergence of eSIMs, together with support from Apple and Android-based smartphones, created something of a land-grab as countless eSIM providers popped up to capitalise on the gold rush. There are now a huge number of providers – a small number accounting for the lion’s share of the market, followed by a long tail of hundreds of others. For the significant players, margins are still attractive – especially considering the ‘breakage’ from packages which are not fully used – but the competition is becoming fierce as the various providers jostle to acquire or protect their market share.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by the operators themselves – in missing out on their traditional out-roaming revenues, many have looked to recoup their losses by wholesaling connectivity either domestically or across their roaming footprint. Typically, this is a simple resale arrangement, enabled by a basic provisioning and billing integration.
The commodity challenge: Limited differentiation in today’s eSIM market
As in all frontier markets, the initial excitement soon settles down – and given that everyone is broadly selling the same commodity with almost limitless supply but a practically constrained market, margins are starting to come under pressure as prices drop. In the case of travel eSIM, the variables tend to be limited to coverage (such as global, regional or country-specific plans), the amount of data (such as 10 Gigabytes) and the duration (such as 14 days). Aside from juggling with these variables – and optimising route-to-market and providing an effective buying and service experience – options for differentiation are limited.
The next phase of eSIM innovation
However, the next wave of eSIM providers are gathering in the wings – set on entering the market to upset this nascent status quo with alternative business models, propositions better aligned with customers needs and behaviour, and providing eSIMs which are seamlessly integrated into a broader bundle of adjacent services.
Doing this effectively requires a more sophisticated approach than simply reselling wholesale connectivity. It requires a platform which provides powerful control over customer lifecycle, the performance of the connectivity itself, and which provides real-time insights into how, where and when the service is being used. The eSIM provider needs to control the subscribers themselves on a powerful core network – and which is independent of the (potentially multiple) sponsoring operators providing the connectivity footprint.
Differentiate your eSIM offering with Stacuity Core-as-a-Service
The Stacuity core and edge network is ideally suited to meeting these needs – without the complexity and cost of having to acquire, deploy and implement a network platform directly. The technical aspects are taken care of – from integrating into the sponsor operators to efficiently routing large volumes of traffic worldwide. Providers can focus on creating powerful, differentiated commercial propositions, enabling accelerated customer acquisition and attractive, defendable margins.
The Top 10 Stacuity core and edge network features for eSIM providers are:
Regional breakout – providing fast, responsive connectivity worldwide.
Multi-operator – allowing eSIM profiles for multiple sponsor operators to be managed consistently in a unified platform.
Dynamic QoS – being able to provide different speeds of service, and vary speeds on-the-fly based on customer behaviour, location or other requirements.
Walled garden – restricting the sites which customers can access, and changing the restrictions dynamically (such as when packages expire, or new bundles are purchased).
Geolocation – providing real-time information on customer’s location and time-zone, enabling ad targeting or localised content and services.
Reactive bundles – allowing usage quotas to be created in real time, which can be used for promotions or ad-subsided quotas.
Operator policies – steering customers to networks with better performance or lower wholesale costs.
Shared accounts – for example, an allocation of data applied across a number of eSIMs (such as a ‘family pack’ or corporate schemes).
Custom SPNs – increasing brand exposure by showing your brand as the current network provider.
Sophisticated routing policies – for integration with DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) providers or transparent VPNs (for privacy and security).
Learn more
If you are an existing eSIM provider looking to increase market share, improve margin, and provide services beyond a ‘dumb pipe’ – or if you operate a business in an adjacent market and are considering how to add eSIM into your portfolio – then please get in touch to discuss how partnering with Stacuity can help you to provider a better eSIM.
