Travel e-sim boom threatens mobile industry’s roaming cash cow

Demand for e-sim cards used for travel is on course to jump by about a third this year as international travellers seek out cheaper alternatives to data roaming packages, posing a threat to traditional mobile operators.

Analysts at researcher FDM CCS Insight estimated that about 134mn travel e-sims would be used globally this year, up from 101.8mn in 2025.

Consumers are downloading e-sims from players including Airalo, which has raised close to $300mn from investors including private equity firm CVC, and Saily, an operator owned by NordVPN developer Nord Security.

They offer data packages for overseas travellers that are typically cheaper than roaming deals from their existing mobile provider.

The trend was posing a growing challenge to established mobile players, who made between 3 and 5 per cent of revenues from roaming, according to Joe Gardiner, analyst at FDM CCS, who added that this income was typically higher margin.

“How [operators] react to that challenge, whether that’s through innovation, pricing parity or better service, will determine how much of that revenue is at risk,” Gardiner added.

The five most popular e-sim apps have been downloaded more than 26mn times so far this year, following 36.4mn downloads in 2025, according to data from market research group Sensor Tower.

Companies including Revolut and Klarna also offer e-sim data packages to their customers. An example e-sim from Revolut provides users with 1GB of data over seven days for £3.49, whereas BT-owned EE can charge £8 for 500MB of data to use in a 24-hour period.

Researchers at STL Partners estimate the travel e-sim market was worth £649mn in 2025 and could reach £3.2bn by 2030.

The growth has been fuelled by an increase in the number of smartphones that are compatible with e-sims. More than 326 handsets, including Apple’s iPhone range, accepted e-sims in 2025, an increase of almost 50 per cent on the previous year, according to data from mobile industry body GSMA.

Saily chief executive Vykintas Maknickas said the e-sim market was benefiting from widespread consumer awareness.

“The market’s moving from educating customers to converting them and that conversion is accelerating,” he said.

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The proliferation of travel e-sims adds to the challenges facing incumbent mobile operators, which are contending with competition from mobile virtual network operators that use their networks to offer full services without needing to build their own infrastructure.

The FT reported in May that the UK’s three mobile network operators had experienced their worst year of customer losses on record in 2025.

Hermann Frank, chief executive of Gigs, the connectivity start-up whose technology underpins the mobile offerings of Revolut and Klarna, said the development of e-sims had enabled a “full end-to-end digital telecoms service”.

“The structural advantage that these players have is that they don’t have to pay for customer acquisition cost and have a better user experience as well; you just need to click a button on the app,” he said.