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A necessity of the era of mobile phones, which produced billions, is disappearing from the first mobile phones: the SIM card. Developed by Munich company Giesecke+Devrient in 1991, the company now also sells a digital version called eSIM, which is embedded in the phone as a chip without a plastic card. “In the US, the iPhone 14 no longer has a slot for a SIM card, only a built-in eSIM,” says Ralf Wintergerst, CEO of G+D.
SIM stands for “Subscriber Identity Module”. The original purpose of the cards was to explicitly authenticate users on the mobile network, but now many security functions have been added. One of the practical benefits of eSIM is that no physical card needs to be inserted into the slot – a more or less difficult finger exercise depending on skill. Vacationers or business travelers abroad often purchase a second SIM to avoid an astronomically high phone bill. Several contracts can run simultaneously on an eSIM.
But with eSIM, the company primarily has an audience that neither calls nor writes Whatsapp: machines. “Today, the eSIM system is also installed in BMW models, for example,” says Wintergerst. “We are investing heavily in IoT solutions to expand connectivity services between connected devices.”
The “Internet of Things”, known in the industry as “IoT” for short, is now the main growing market. Hamburg-based market research and consulting firm IoT Analytics estimates that there are 14.3 billion connected devices worldwide by the end of 2022, of which about 2.9 billion are via mobile communications, as a spokesperson explained. Most other machines are connected to the outside world via WLAN or Bluetooth.
According to an estimate by IoT Analytics, there could be 27 billion networked machines and devices by 2027, six billion of which are via mobile communications. And someday in the not-too-distant future, the number of machines with cellular connectivity is expected to exceed the number of people on the planet.
There are many applications imaginable – primarily equipment and machines that move from or away from a server. Cars are just one example. “For example, our newly acquired subsidiary, Mecomo, offers tracking and tracing and services for large logistics companies, meaning “search and find,” says Wintergerst.
“This makes it possible to determine where a product is currently located. I thought this was a deep-rooted problem, but it’s not.” Even at the airport, luggage containers are often left lying around – “and staff have to search for a quarter of an hour until they find the right one. It’s relatively easy to solve,” says the manager.
G+D CEO cites digital agriculture as another example. “The sensors can be used to gauge how things are with irrigation and plant growth.” A connection is required, as the sensor must transmit the measurement results to a server. Due to insufficient coverage in the fields, pastures and gardens, Bluetooth or WLAN cannot be used, the definitive solution is a mobile phone connection.
Due to their rapid growth, machine customers are naturally also a popular market for telephony providers. Deutsche Telekom ranked fifth in 2022, with a good global market share of five percent, according to IoT Analytics. Compared to some human customers, machines are probably pleasant to deal with: They don’t angrily complain about dead spots, but they do send the most error messages.
“We almost hand-cut our first SIM card to Mannesmann,” says Wintergerst. “Over the years we have produced about nine billion parts. It used to be a physical product for which we were paid some per piece.”
According to the executive, the eSIM chip is installed during the phone’s manufacture and “in an all-digital business model, we charge customers for activation and software licenses.”
There are now other SIM card manufacturers in addition to G+D. It is no longer possible to determine how many cards have been produced worldwide since the first mobile phones were introduced in the 1990s. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, at the end of 2021 there were 1.7 billion mobile phone contracts in China alone, 361 million in the US and 106 million in Germany. In many other countries, too, mobile phone contracts outnumber the resident population.
Cell phones have relatively short product cycles and many people like to buy the latest models. This is evident in figures from the German digital industry association Bitkom: More than 284 million mobile phones have been sold in Germany since 2006.
This cannot be equated with the sale of a SIM, as most of the time only the phone is changed while the contract is in progress. But there is no doubt that the number of cards is still increasing.
(SDA)
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
