India to be global hub for manufacturing eSIMs with IDEMIA's help

French company plans to make Noida plant one of its largest production units

With leading French augmented identity and SIM (subscriber identity module) card maker IDEMIA deciding to make India a global hub for manufacturing embedded SIMs, there will soon be a little bit of India in many mobile phones across the world.
 
Embedded SIM (eSIM) is the next generation technology where an integrated circuit card is embedded in a mobile device, enabling consumers to change their networks remotely or through a QR code rather than waiting to get a SIM delivered physically.
 
IDEMIA, with revenues of 2.3 billion euros, is building its eSIM manufacturing capacity across the world, and has already put in one fifth of its annual capacity of 60 million in a plant in Noida.
 
What’s more, the company plans to expand the capacity and make the plant into one of its largest eSIM factories.
 
It has also committed to spending 200 million euros every year in India for the next five years for research and development. 
 
Says Matthew Foxton, regional president India, IDEMIA: “India will be one of our largest manufacturing plants for eSIMs. We are the only ones who have started manufacturing eSIMs in the country.”  Asked why they have chosen India over China for manufacturing, Foxton says: “We prefer to manufacture in India because of our historic presence in the telecom sector”. IDEMIA made a big bet in India with the standard SIM cards. Currently, it manufactures over 600 million SIMs in the country, which accounts for over 67 per cent of its global production and its largest plant in Noida. It has provided over a one billion standard SIMs to Indian customers and controls over 40 per cent of this market. 

 
India’s eSIM market is still in its infancy, with around 1 million users, although all three Indian mobile operators offer the service to their customers. 
 
The mobile phone brands powered by eSIMs include Apple (with an estimated 97 per cent of the market share), followed by Samsung, Google and Motorola. But they are limited to a few models in each brand.
 
IDEMIA admits that there is always some resistance to a new product, but that will likely change.  After all, telcos have not pushed eSIMs aggressively as they make it easier for customers to switch operators.
 
The company estimates that about 30 per cent of all smart phone mobile devices will be powered by eSIMs in the next few years and the market will grow at the rate of 30 per cent per annum. According to Counterpoint, the global market for eSIM-powered devices is expected to shoot up from 364 million in 2018 to 2 billion in 2020.  Currently, the big markets include US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore. 
 
With an employee strength of over 5000, IDEMIA has its global R&D centre in India.
 
It has also worked closely with the Indian government on some key projects — IDEMIA was the biometric provider for the country’s Aadhaar programme.
 
The company is also facilitating eSIMs in the machine-to-machine domain where it sees a substantial market, especially in the connected vehicles space.