Travel eSIM has spent years being presented as the cheaper, more convenient alternative to roaming. Kaleido Intelligence’s new Global Travel eSIM Landscape 2026 report suggests that description is now too small for what is happening.

The more important finding is not simply that more travellers know what an eSIM is. It is that they are starting to trust it with a larger share of the trip. Average travel eSIM spend has risen sharply, purchasing is moving before departure, and connectivity is increasingly appearing inside airline, fintech and travel-booking journeys.

Kaleido surveyed 5,000 international travellers across 20 outbound markets, with 250 respondents in each country. Its headline conclusion is uncomfortable for mobile operators: international connectivity remains so unpredictable that almost three-quarters of travellers still restrict their mobile use abroad to avoid roaming costs. Thirty-eight percent switch data off for the entire trip, while another 35% do it occasionally.

“Travel eSIM isn’t just a tech shift. It’s part of how a generation moves through the world. For Gen Z and Millennials, it’s not a connectivity mode, it’s just an app. It sits alongside social feeds, payment methods and travel apps, woven into their end-to-end digital experience. It’s simple to understand, transparent in pricing, and gives them exactly what they pay for, without the complexity of traditional roaming.”

Travellers are buying more than emergency data

The report’s most revealing number is not adoption. It is spend.

Average travel eSIM expenditure reached approximately $28 per trip in 2026, up 133% from just over $12 in 2025. Average spend on operator roaming bundles and daily passes was still higher, at around $42, but fell 9% year on year. Kaleido argues that the eSIM increase does not necessarily mean entry-level prices are rising. Travellers are buying larger allowances, longer-validity packages, multi-country coverage and additional top-ups.

That distinction matters. A €4 data pack bought as insurance is a different product from a regional eSIM used as the traveller’s primary connection for two weeks. The market is moving from experimentation to dependence.

READ MORE: Travel Roaming Guide: eSIMs, Costs and Coverage

Kaleido says 35% of leisure travellers now use a local SIM, travel SIM or travel eSIM abroad. For business travel, 45% say company policies support these alternatives. Asia-Pacific is further ahead: Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and China lead the report’s digital SIM-based travel connectivity rankings. Awareness has reached 74% globally and 79% in Asia-Pacific.

This growth is also being helped by the device market. GSMA Intelligence expects global eSIM smartphone penetration to rise from 5% at the end of 2025 to 10% by the end of 2026, with eSIM smartphone connections projected to overtake removable-SIM connections by 2030.

The strange advantage operators still hold

Specialist brands built the consumer travel eSIM category, yet Kaleido found that 89% of travellers placed mobile operators among their three preferred eSIM sellers. Sixty percent selected specialist providers. Trust, billing familiarity and the perception of network ownership still matter.

High eSIM awareness is translating into clear purchase intent, while mobile operators currently retain a distinct trust advantage.

The surprise is that operators have not fully converted that advantage into a superior buying experience.

READ MORE: Booking Platforms Monetized Flights and Stays. Connectivity Is Next.

Airalo now says it serves more than 30 million travellers across 200-plus destinations, while Holafly has built its position around unlimited-data offers across more than 200 destinations. Their success comes from making connectivity searchable, purchasable and understandable before a traveller reaches the airport.

Operator-backed Orange Travel is responding with the same playbook. It offers eSIM coverage in more than 200 destinations and has partnered with Selectour to place eSIM offers into travel-agency bookings across roughly 1,000 points of sale. This is not traditional roaming, being slightly redesigned. It is an operator competing as a travel-retail brand.

Distribution is becoming the product

Kaleido reports that 86% of travellers buy connectivity in their home market, making the booking period and days before departure the decisive sales window. That explains why airlines, banks, online travel agencies and loyalty platforms are becoming more influential.

Revolut’s eSIM service, powered by 1GLOBAL, gives customers access to travel data across more than 200 destinations without leaving the banking app. Ubigi has taken a similar embedded route through travel partners, including integrating eSIM into TAROM’s passenger booking journey. Connectivity is no longer waiting to be discovered in a telecom store; it is appearing beside the flight, payment card or travel itinerary.

This changes the competitive question. The winner may not be the provider with the lowest wholesale rate. It may be the platform that reaches the traveller at the right moment, explains the offer clearly and makes activation nearly invisible.

Reusable models are especially important here. Kaleido found that 42% prefer an eSIM that can be topped up for different destinations, while 31% favour subscription-style multi-country coverage. That points toward persistent connectivity accounts rather than a fresh disposable profile for every holiday.

The category still has rough edges

Travel eSIM is not automatically the right answer for everyone. Travellers whose domestic plan already includes generous roaming may gain little by adding another line. A destination operator’s local eSIM can be better for longer stays, especially when a local number, calls or SMS are required. Corporate travellers may also be better served by centrally managed roaming or enterprise connectivity rather than purchasing individual consumer packages.

Providers still need to become more transparent about the actual network, traffic routing, latency, speed restrictions, tethering, fair-use policies, local IP availability and support response times. “Unlimited” can describe very different experiences, and a plan covering a country does not guarantee identical performance across every network or region.

The report itself deserves one caution. Its public white paper is a high-level snapshot rather than the full dataset. Some graphics reference the 2025 survey while the narrative discusses the April 2026 study, and the country-by-country prior-year figures behind the 133% increase are not published. The findings are valuable directional evidence, but they should not be confused with audited market revenue.

Conclusion: The battle is no longer eSIM versus roaming

Roaming will not disappear. Neither will local SIMs or Wi-Fi. The market is settling into a hybrid model in which travellers choose differently by destination, duration, device and risk tolerance.

But the balance of power is changing. Specialist providers such as Airalo and Holafly proved that travellers would shop for connectivity like a digital travel product. Operator-led services such as Orange Travel are now bringing network trust into that retail model. Embedded players such as 1GLOBAL, Revolut and Ubigi are going one step further by making connectivity part of another company’s customer journey.

That leaves one strategic dividing line: ownership of the traveller relationship. Providers that compete only on gigabytes will be easy to replace. Those that combine trusted connectivity, honest performance information, reusable profiles, responsive support and distribution inside the travel journey can build something much harder to commoditise.

The 2026 eSIM market is not simply taking revenue away from roaming. It is redefining where travel connectivity is discovered, who sells it and which brand the traveller remembers afterward.