eSIM travel data margins under pressure: About time
The Juniper research team have published their latest report on the eSIM travel marketplace which, amongst other metrics, indicates better news for consumers and rough news for the marketplace as a whole:
Average revenue per gigabyte of travel eSIM data will generate $2.78 by 2025; a fall from $3.20 in 2023
That's you and me getting a better deal.
It's also indicative of the way things are going.
Yes, I hold a candle for the innovative players who have brought some degree of sanity to the data roaming marketplace (I'm thinking Airalo, for example). But I have little patience for the whole thing. I think it's utter, utter rubbish that I'm forced to pay ridiculous per-gigabyte charges even today, when I'm in another country.
There used to be a serious excuse for some kind of roaming charge. It was heavily bureaucratic. There were costs for operators in, say, the UK trying to support their customers access a network in the States. Back then, billing was done via CSV files.
The market has moved on.
Super-normal profits have remained.
We can see the cost trajectory for consumers - thankfully - and it's downward, downward, downward.
Now it's about managing the customer experience to try and artificially boost those margins as much as they can.
I'd suggest that there's next to no excuse for these sky high roaming charges other than because we've done it this way for so long – and customers don't have much choice.
This business of having to go and get a local (e)SIM every time you visit a new country is the height of inefficiency in 2025/2026.
It's about time we saw margin pressure move to the point that it's an extra $5 for the duration of your stay in the country, for example.
Sadly, I think it'll take the likes of Elon Musk to introduce a global $10 global unlimited plan before we get to that level.
As for me, I'm still an Airalo customer, yes. But, interestingly (as it aligns with the Juniper viewpoint), my primary data supplier internationally is a bank (Revolut - thanks to their Ultra plan), not a cellular firm.
Get the Juniper report right here.
