“I think it's an opportunity for telecom expense managers to take that into the enterprise market with the lessons learned and bring that same kind of reliability that we bring to the aviation industry and the sort of user-friendliness that we've created for our consumer users,” says Sam King, chief revenue officer for GigSky. Sam thinks this a place where people watching IT and telecom spend, can shine but cutting costs, painlessly.
Over the past five years as smartphone manufacturers have integrated embedded SIM cards (eSIM) into their phones, a growing number of fintech firms and credit card companies have begun to embrace the technology to create additional revenue streams and drive customer loyalty. As a result, financial firms are beginning to eat into the market share of traditional telecom companies as customers increasingly look for ways to avoid expensive roaming fees when they travel overseas.
For example, Zolve, an Indian neobank, recently began offering eSIM plans tailored for Indian expats pursuing educational or professional opportunities in the United States. The new service means American telecoms are losing important market growth to foreign fintech firms. VISA has also gotten into the game. The credit card company recently partnered with GigSky to begin offering cardholders complementary and/or discounted eSIMs as part of its core travel benefits in Latin America and Canada, and will soon be rolling out a similar offer in the United States.
“We're a mobile network operator like AT&T, Verizon, Bell TELUS, Vodafone, except that we're data only, and we specialize in providing mobile connectivity around the world we all operate a geo-redundant network, and we provide data in Europe, North America, South America Asia, Australia New Zealand you know pretty much everywhere, says Sam.
The mobile technology company that provides eSIM data plans is about why credit card companies and fintech firms are offering eSIMs to their consumers. “We provide data, to oil and gas workers in the North Sea and in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as to passengers and crew on over 200 of the world's largest cruise ships around the world. You can deal directly with an enterprise end user. If I'm a cruise ship company or a bank or I have some sort of organization where we have people traveling or all sorts of different circumstances, I can talk to you, and you can work with us.