The eSIM takeover of both consumer and IoT markets is continuing at a steady pace, with global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasting 403 million consumer devices and 140 million IoT eSIM-enabled devices to ship in 2025. These strong results follow a reversal in the overall smartphone market’s year-on-year growth, with declines in 2022 and 2023 giving way to a sharp rebound in 2024 and 2025.

Accelerating eSIM adoption among smartphone manufacturers is a key contributor to the surge of eSIM-enabled device shipments.

“The continued dominance of smartphones, which constituted 66% of total eSIM-enabled device shipments in 2024 and 74% in 2025, explains the mitigated overall impact of a challenged IoT market,” says Research Analyst Georgia Cooke.

“Delays to SGP.32 ratification have inhibited expected new IoT deployments, but with over 70% of smartphones still lacking eSIM support, the continued march towards full market penetration leaves smartphones standing as the largest eSIM growth area by volume through 2030.”

China will soon allow eSIM for domestic use in smartphones—beginning with a pilot scheme from China Unicom—unlocking the last remaining portion of the addressable smartphone market for eSIM penetration. The high shipment volumes in this market will drive the Asia-Pacific region to hold the highest growth rates for eSIM-enabled smartphones from 2025 to 2030, with a 22.8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for this period. This compares to more modest rates of 6.2% and 9.8% in North America and Western Europe, respectively, where leadership in early adoption is settling into steadier expansion.

However, for vendors focused beyond IC and device shipments—such as innovative eSIM-first MVNOs and service providers, orchestrators, and travel eSIM vendors—these regions present a well-seeded market. This is particularly true in the United States, where Apple offers its iPhones exclusively as eSIM-only—a unique stance that overcomes the usual delay between device availability and actual usage. With other manufacturers expected to adopt this approach and expansions of the policy to Western Europe and eventually beyond, MNOs must be prepared to scale eSIM support. Operator readiness varies by country, but with over a billion consumer profile downloads expected in 2029, the opportunity for infrastructure providers and service vendors is significant.

This is something of a pre-emptive moment for the eSIM market, with the big changes coming at the end of 2025 and throughout 2026. Chinese adoption, expanding eSIM-only usage, and SGP.32 deployments in the IoT market will mark years of sustained momentum. As the market matures, the opportunities available become more diverse, and stronger niche alignment will drive big wins for shrewd vendors.

Final thoughts

The forecasted surge to over 633 million eSIM-enabled devices by 2026 underscores not just market growth but a strategic realignment in global connectivity. Unlike earlier SIM technology shifts, which were largely operator-driven, the momentum here is being set by device manufacturers and regulatory changes. Apple’s decision to go eSIM-only in the U.S., soon to extend to Europe, parallels China’s long-awaited approval of domestic eSIM use—a move comparable in scale to when India liberalized 4G spectrum in the early 2010s, which reshaped global telecom rankings (GSMA Intelligence, 2024). Meanwhile, players like Samsung and Google remain more cautious, offering eSIM but not yet enforcing exclusivity, which mirrors the staggered adoption patterns seen during the 3G-to-4G transition.

The IoT sector tells a different story. While SGP.32 delays echo the setbacks LoRaWAN and NB-IoT faced in their rollout phases, the standard’s eventual ratification could unlock the same kind of exponential scaling we’ve seen with cloud-native 5G private networks (McKinsey, 2023). Here, Ericsson and Thales are positioning themselves as critical orchestrators, ensuring security and interoperability, while travel-focused eSIM vendors like Airalo and Airhub are carving consumer niches that traditional MNOs underestimated.

Taken together, these dynamics suggest that eSIM is not simply a replacement technology—it is becoming the foundation for a more software-defined, service-centric telecom model. The companies that thrive will be those that, like Apple and China Unicom, accelerate adoption through bold moves rather than incremental steps.

About ABI Research

ABI Research is a global technology intelligence firm uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology solution providers and end-market companies. We serve as the bridge that seamlessly connects these two segments by providing exclusive research and expert guidance to drive successful technology implementations and deliver strategies proven to attract and retain customers.