A new study from Juniper Research has put fresh numbers behind a trend anyone in the travel connectivity space has been feeling for a while: travel eSIM revenues per gigabyte are falling fast. According to their latest market analysis, the average revenue per GB of travel eSIM data is projected to hit $2.78 by 2025, down from $3.20 in 2023. That’s more than a 10% drop in just two years, and lower wholesale costs don’t drive the decline. Those have largely stagnated. Instead, competition is intensifying — dramatically.

What this means is simple: the days when travel eSIM providers could scale on data margins alone are over. The market is maturing, new players are flooding in, and customers are choosing based on price first. And when everyone races to the bottom, margins suffer.

So what happens next? Juniper’s new dataset — one of the most comprehensive released so far, covering 60+ countries and more than 9,000 data points — suggests that the winners in this next phase will be the companies that stop selling only data and start selling value.

Why Margins Are Falling Even as Demand Rises

The big twist here is that wholesale data costs haven’t budged. Operators aren’t paying less for the underlying connectivity, yet they’re charging customers less per GB. It’s an unusual dynamic in telecom, where price drops typically follow infrastructure cost reductions.

Juniper points to one clear driver: the rise of travel eSIM enablers. These are backend providers that let virtually any brand launch its own travel eSIM product — airlines, fintech apps, travel agencies, online marketplaces, even influencer-driven platforms. By lowering technical and regulatory barriers, the enablers have brought dozens of new vendors into what used to be a relatively niche industry.

More sellers mean more competition. And more competition means prices trend downward — especially in a space where many vendors compete on the exact same data packages.

Juniper’s Senior Research Analyst, Molly Gatford, puts it bluntly: “Vendors have shifted focus from protecting margins to retaining customers.” That shift is why a $3.20 GB is becoming a $2.78 GB, even as carrier wholesale pricing remains unchanged.

This intensifying competition is due to the emergence of travel eSIM enablers; players that enable non-telecom brands to launch their own solutions by lowering entry barriers. As more brands have launched travel eSIM solutions, vendors have shifted focus from protecting margins to retaining customers, by lowering package prices. Amid growing competition, niche travel eSIM providers that add value through bundled services will outperform larger players that do not, as they can secure stronger margins. The market position of leading vendors is now threatened by these niche players, which offer value beyond data-only travel eSIMs

Bundling Is Becoming the New Battleground

With pure data margins shrinking, Juniper argues that the next competitive edge will come from bundling. Not volume discounts, not bigger gigabyte packs — but actual value-added services wrapped into an eSIM purchase.

A few clear examples are already emerging across the industry:

• Loyalty rewards and travel perks (points, discounts, lounge access partnerships)
• Travel tools (trip planners, safety alerts, expense tracking)
• Communication add-ons (temporary numbers, VOIP credits, messaging boosts)
• Insurance bundles (flight delay cover, lost luggage, basic medical add-ons)
• Fintech benefits (cross-border payments, FX perks, ATM fee discounts)

Juniper’s forecast suggests that niche eSIM providers — the ones experimenting with these value layers — will outperform larger players who continue selling data-only offerings. More importantly, bundling creates margin opportunities that are not tied to data wholesale costs at all.

This is a fundamental shift: travel eSIMs are evolving from a commodity to a service ecosystem.

How This Study Fits Bigger Market Trends

If you zoom out, the narrative here fits with broader global trends in telecom and travel tech:

• Airalo, Holafly, and Nomad have built strong brand positions, but face pressure from airlines, OTAs, and fintechs launching their own eSIMs.
• Airhub, Yesim — rising and more flexible players — are already pushing into value-added space with loyalty programs, in-app integrations, and premium support layers.
• Telecom operators remain relatively slow-moving in the travel-specific segment, which continues to open space for digital-first competitors.
• Apple and Google’s eSIM-first devices continue to normalize eSIM usage, boosting demand but also democratizing the playing field.

Multiple independent reports — including those from GSMA Intelligence, IDC — have noted that digital MVNOs and travel eSIM vendors increasingly rely on service differentiation rather than data pricing to grow sustainably. Juniper’s dataset essentially quantifies what these analysts have been signaling for over a year.

And because this new research includes a Competitor Leaderboard and thousands of forecasting points, it will likely become a key reference for investors, mobile operators, and travel tech strategists looking to navigate the next five years.

Conclusion: Bundled Value Will Decide Who Wins the Next Phase of eSIM Growth

What makes this study particularly important is not the drop from $3.20 to $2.78 — price declines were inevitable. It’s the confirmation that traditional data-only travel eSIM models are running out of runway.

The competitive threat isn’t just from other eSIM vendors anymore. It’s from airlines, neobanks, OTAs, loyalty platforms, and travel apps — all launching their own eSIMs and using them as entry points into wider customer ecosystems. That means the strongest players going forward will be those who behave less like telecom resellers and more like travel experience platforms.

Providers such as Airhub or Yesim, which are already experimenting with loyalty and integrated travel services, are better positioned than the big pure-data sellers who built their scale on price leadership. And based on research from GSMA and Juniper, the companies that master bundling — whether that’s perks, tools, insurance, or fintech layers — will gain not only higher margins but stickier, more loyal customers.

Data is no longer the product. It’s the entry ticket. The value comes from everything built around it.

If the market continues in this direction, travel eSIMs won’t just be a connectivity tool — they’ll become a central touchpoint in the travel experience itself.