NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.
These findings are from ABI Research's eSIM in the Consumer and IoT Markets report. This report is part of the company's eSIM & SIM Solutions research service, which includes research, data, and ABI Insights.
About ABI Research
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