According to MTS, 7% of IoT devices in Russia will be connected though virtual SIM cards (eSIM) by the end of 2022. By 2025, this figure will increase to 25%.

The company says, most of the devices with eSIM support will be “smart meters, devices and connected cars”. A representative of one of the major operators interviewed by Kommersant said, the prospects of eSIM in the consumer segment were limited, since “subscribers who use smartphones with eSIM support have already exchanged a regular SIM card for a virtual one, only the replacement of old devices can accelerate the penetration of eSIM into the consumer sector, and this process is quite slow.”

According to the publication sources, the situation is complicated because foreign solutions which had been used by Russian telecom operators to download and store eSIM subscriber profiles have been unavailable since the providers left Russia. In particular, there remains “the risk of revoking the root certificate, which is necessary for the platform to work,”. According to a governmental source, the risks exist only if the telecom operator uses a foreign cloud solution.

MTS says, the company uses the services of a Russian provider, and the subscribers’ profile data is stored in the country. Tele2 has its own platform for generating eSIM profiles, “all virtual card profiles are stored within the Tele2 infrastructure”. beeline says, it cooperates with the Russian A1 Systems provider.

A1 Systems claims, the main risk of using a foreign platform may be the sudden termination of the contract. If this happens, it will become impossible for M2M/IoT to manage profiles, although the device will not disconnect from the network. In the consumer sector, as a result of this issue, this distribution channel may stop working for some time.

Original in Russian