Key Findings
5G SA roaming has not yet arrived, and when it does, it is unlikely to make a substantial impact on consumer roaming.
VoLTE roaming is becoming increasingly important to sponsored roaming coverage.
The report scored BICs as the leader in the sponsored roaming market.
Despite the rise of travel eSIMs, support for roaming will remain a critical service for MNOs and MVNOs providing mobile services.
Overview
Our Sponsored Roaming Competitor Leaderboard 2026 delivers competitor benchmarking and analysis of 14 leading sponsored roaming vendors. It provides mobile network operators (MNOs), mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), and other players with profiles, benchmarking, and strategic analysis of leading vendors in this significantly changing market.
All report content is delivered in the English language.
- The report scored BICs as the leader in the sponsored roaming market, followed by Telna, Vodafone Procure & Connect, and Orange Wholesale. BICs ranked as the market leader due to its leadership in delivering access to Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE) and 5G Non Standalone (NSA) roaming to its customers.
- VoLTE roaming is becoming increasingly important to sponsored roaming coverage; as 2G and 3G networks sunsets around the world they remove alternative voice channels for roaming mobile subscribers. Voice is a key differentiator from many travel eSIM alternatives, and for high-value enterprise customers; meaning expanding support for VoLTE is critical to any leading sponsored roaming vendor’s service roadmap.
- 5G SA roaming has not yet arrived, and when it does, it is unlikely to make a substantial impact on consumer roaming; with 4G and 5G NSA roaming more than capable of meeting a consumer’s usage and application whilst roaming. As a result, 5G SA roaming is not a prominent development in sponsored roaming; Juniper Research does not expect this to change over the next year.
- Despite the rise of travel eSIMs, support for roaming will remain a critical service for MNOs and MVNOs providing mobile services. Sponsored roaming vendors need to be able to support a customer’s transition to more transparent and data-driven roaming strategies over the next 12 months.
Competitor Leaderboard Report
The Competitor Leaderboard report provides detailed evaluation and market positioning for 14 sponsored roaming vendors. Vendors are positioned either as an Established Leader, Leading Challenger, or Disrupter and Challenger; based on capability & capacity and product & positioning scoring assessments. These vendors include:
- A1 International Business
- BICS
- China Mobile International
- Comfone*
- e&
- JT Global
- LANCK Telecom
- Orange Wholesale
- Roamability
- Tele2
- Telefónica Global Solutions
- Telna
- TI Sparkle
- Vodafone Procure & Connect
This competitive analysis document is centred around the Juniper Research Competitor Leaderboard; a vendor positioning tool that provides an at-a-glance view of the competitive landscape in a market, backed by a robust methodology.
*Juniper Research did not benchmark Comfone due to its specific role as an intermediary between sponsors and their customers, rather than using its own roaming agreements.
Research Deliverables
Competitor Leaderboard PDF Report
A comprehensive analysis of the current market landscape, alongside strategic recommendations, in addition to a visual representation of the competitive positioning of the leaders within the market.
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Competitor Leaderboard with 14 vendors ranked