How Environmental Concerns Are Driving eSIM & iSIM

February 2024

Telecoms & Connectivity

Elisha Sudlow-Poole

Senior Research Analyst

As we discuss in our latest research, one major factor driving the industrywide transition from traditional, pluckable plastic SIM cards to eSIMs is the environmental impact of traditional plastic SIM cards — which not only produce both electronic and plastic waste, but require to be shipped from their point of manufacture to their final destination.

Indeed, although the plugin size of SIM cards continues to shrink, it is anticipated that approximately 4.5 billion SIM cards are issued and shipped each year, which accounts for over 18,000 tons of plastic waste and 560,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually. 

Historically, many network operators have been unwilling to pay additional costs to invest in more environmentally friendly products. However, over the last two to three years, sustainability has become an important topic for telecoms market stakeholders with the ability to provide ‘greener’ products creating a competitive advantage among many SIM providers.

While one option to reducing waste would be to use more eco-friendly plastic, a better way would be to make the process digital. With this, eSIMs became an attractive option as they do not require any plastic, nor do they need to be posted separately to the device as they are already embedded into the device.

Indeed, we note that, in 2023, several leading eSIM management platforms announced sustainability initiatives aimed at reducing their environmental impact.

• In May 2023, KORE Wireless launched a new initiative to minimise the waste products by SIM card packaging. This initiative involved reducing the size of card bodies in its SIM shipments.
• In July 2023, Thales announced that after three years of joint development with Veolia, it had created a process of turning polystyrene waste from discarded fridges into pellets that can be used to manufacture the SIM card body.

Additionally, iSIMs present a more environmentally friendly SIM solution as their characteristics of lower space requirements coupled with optimised energy consumption mean that they are more sustainable than both traditional SIMs and eSIMs. This is due to iSIMs removing the requirement for SIM slots, additional chip housing or use of plastic. With this, many leading eSIM management platforms have also announced the support for iSIM initiative including:

• In June 2023, G+D (Giesecke+Devrient) and Sateliot announced that they had agreed a strategic partnership that leverages iSIMs to provide cellular and satellite connectivity. This partnership will leverage Sateliot’s LEO (Low Earth Orbit) network to provide 5G satellite connectivity for IoT use cases.

The implementation of eSIMs or iSIMs would greatly impact levels of plastic production associated with telecommunications. We believe that sustainability and environmental concerns will drive the adoption of eSIM connectivity, with the consequent scaling of eSIM solutions leading to a reduction in costs. In turn, this will make eSIM-enabled technology more affordable.

Aside from eSIMs reducing the amount of plastic and postal services, we note that when interviewing leading eSIM management platforms during the writing of this report, many vendors commented on the increased frequency of digitalised customer journeys having a major impact on supply chains.

Juniper Research believes that leveraging APIs is the most effective way to support RSP as operators migrate to cloud-based SIM provisioning and this will be key to creating a seamless eSIM integration and management. Additionally, the deployment of eSIM will allow for deeper device type analytics, further promoting the digitalised experience as operators and SIM management platforms are able to provide more personalised services for both enterprises and consumers.

Source: Global eSIMs & iSIMs Market 2024-2028

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