T-Mobile and Orange with eSIM offer
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polski
Orange was the first MNO in Poland to include a virtual eSIM card solution in its telecommunications offer. Recently, T-Mobile offered a similar service to its customers. So far, greater interest in eSIM in Poland is limited by the initial stage of service development and low awareness of the service among users, availability only for selected devices or selected customer groups (B2B segment).
Orange Polska with over 50,000 eSIM card users
eSIM is a virtual digital card stored in a small module permanently built into a smartphone, smart watch or tablet. The eSIM solution, treated as a microchip, can be downloaded remotely. In practice this means that the customer no longer has to physically insert the SIM card into the phone and the device connects to the mobile network in a standard way.
The eSIM function has been commercially available on the Polish telecommunications market for 1.5 years and its precursor is Orange. According to the data disclosed by the operator, the eSIM currently has over 50,000 network users, both business and individual. Using eSIM allows to use one phone number on many different devices. At the beginning of August this year, the eSIM solution was also introduced by T-Mobile, but with limited availability. In the first stage, eSIM in the T-Mobile network will be designed only for corporate customers, and in the next steps the operator also plans to introduce the service to products for smaller companies and individual customers. Electronic SIM card services do not yet have Plus and Play in their offer. What is more, there are no specific premises for the plans to introduce the service by these two MNOs.
Little interest in eSIMs
The eSIM solution in Poland is so far a niche, but it is strongly related to the initial stage of service development on the Polish telecommunications market.. To illustrate the situation – 50,000 eSIM cards in the Orange network translates into a 0.3% share in the operator’s total SIM card base. Significant limitations for greater demand for eSIM cards are low availability of this type of cards – the offer available from selected operators (in the case of T-Mobile only corporate customers), as well as for selected, newer devices (e.g. Apple or Samsung) and low level of service awareness among users. What’s more, customers do not see the need to switch to virtual SIM cards at this point. In the following years, however, the availability and interest in eSIM cards should increase as the service sales model as such develops in Polish business. The current situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic may also be important – the established model of remote services can just speed up the wider implementation of eSIM cards on the Polish market.
