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Kigen leads in industry rankings ahead of MWC24
Bee Hayes-Thakore The weeks leading up to GSMA’s flagship event and the industry’s foremost networking stage – MWC Barcelona are packed with the industry’s most reputable and respected names highlighting the growth momentum of the sector and it’s vendor landscape. Kigen has been recognized as global leader for eSIM enablement and eSIM provisioning for its M2M, the upcoming IoT eSIM and consumer eSIM offering, once again. These fact-based, independently vetted and deep analysis are a trusted source of advice for device makers and OEMs. Here are a few highlights:
Leading the eSIM enablement landscape
Counterpoint Research’s Global eSIM Enablement CORE (COmpetitive Ranking and Evaluation) released it’s report for 2023 on 24 Feb 2024, recognizing Kigen as a Leader for eSIM enablement. Counterpoint Research’s Global eSIM Landscape report is a comprehensive report on the movers and shakers of the eSIM landscape and covers all the leading players in the ecosystem with multiple interviews and research spanning more than three months.
Ankit Malhotra, Senior Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research remarked, “We have analyzed and evaluated key companies in the eSIM value chain using our proprietary CORE framework, which maps active players according to their capabilities and success in execution. The ‘capability’ parameter covers criteria such as firmware, compliance, interoperability and supply chain prowess, while the ‘ecosystem’ parameter covers geographical reach, partnerships and market share.”
Further, Kigen was named as a ‘Leader’, noting great platform capabilities, they have managed to pull ahead of others in terms of execution in the marketplace.
The team noted in particular that “Kigen, one of the fastest-growing leaders, stood out for its iSIM solution and expertise in the IoT market. It is now augmenting its (eSIM) portfolio with consumer solutions as well.”
This is the third year running, that Kigen has been featured in Counterpoint’s CORE eSIM landscape and has continually improved it’s positioning moving from ‘dark horse’ and challenger to ‘leader’ – a testimony to our teams’ focus to solve key scale and high-growth challenges for OEMs.
eSIM technology is set for hyper-growth, something we have noted before from the customer touch points we have. Noting the overall market trends, Malhotra noted the following:
“The global eSIM landscape continued to expand rapidly in 2023, after reaching an inflection point in 2022. Close to half a billion eSIM-capable devices were shipped in 2023. Operator support for eSIM also continued to grow and now more than 350 operators globally support eSIM. Consumer eSIM devices showed maximum growth while the number of IoT-M2M devices (including automotive) with eSIM support remained stable as the industry awaits implementation of SGP.31/32 standards.”
Helpful tip!
Confused by acronyms? Make sure you consult our glossary or ask us directly on LinkedIn.
Trusted by OEMs and device makers for eSIM growth
John Canali released the Omdia eSIMs in IoT Update report, highlighting that eSIM technology is primed for mass adoption, especially in LPWAN devices, aided by SGP.31/32 specifications.
Kigen is one of the #eSIMgloballeaders featured in this insightful report
Key highlights
- eSIM in IoT just over 1 billion in 2023 to grow to over 3.6 billion in 2030
- 90% of global IoT enterprises planned to adopt eSIM/iSIM technology in the next two years (survey of 700)
Further, Cecila Perez, from Frost & Sullivan released the “Global IoT eSIM Market Growth Opportunities” report last month. In it, Kigen is featured for our eSIM, iSIM, RSP products and solutions for smart metering and logistics.
This report covers key questions in the context of the strategic growth imperatives for device makers in 2024, such as:
- What is the state of the global IoT eSIM industry?
- What is the global IoT eSIM market’s growth rate? How will it change during the forecast period?
- Who are the major global IoT eSIM providers? What are their strategies and focus areas?
- What are the growth opportunities for IoT eSIM providers?
The report includes a synopsis of who Kigen are and our strategy on eSIM’s value to manufacturers.
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These notable rankings and recognition comes on the heels of the latest announcements in the last quarter that support OEMs and enterprises move 5G IoT with eSIM to scale.
End of 2023, we focused on the challenge faced by global deployments to be compliant to rise in regulations – for the first, Turkey provided a suitable and apt pioneer market with partners FloLIVE and ProtaHub. The results of this collaboration offer a complete, end-to-end solution that will allow OEMs, global enterprises and mobile operators alike to obtain local IoT connectivity in Turkey via their existing eUICC compatible SIMs.
Over 162 countries have enacted further connectivity, data sovereignty, and data protection laws. It is increasingly important to find a trusted partner that can bring together an ecosystem that supports your global roll outs in the context of the local laws and regulations. Kigen’s extensive partnership ecosystem can help.
This partner ecosystem has been growing. Kigen is thrilled to welcome further public acknowledgment of our collaboration with new partners that is supporting some of the world’s most ambitious IoT eSIM deployments.
CES 2024 confirmed that as device makers emerge from the intense component shortages, they are looking to speed up their time to market, increasingly consider out-of-the-box security and connectivity an essential to win trust of consumers and are looking to win with AI and ML. The experiences of past have also made OEMs more sensitive to bill shock for fast scale-up. Our partnership with Neue Labs now allows OEMs to start and progress a design to leapfrog from concept to scaled production with realistic idea of costs and systems through the Neue ienbl platform. This solution empowers next generation connected products opening a new era for secure sensor as a service. iSIM Technology is estimated to deliver a 13% overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) benefit across different use-cases, further offering more confidence to anyone considering deisgning-in iSIM technology.
Across the board, industry analysts highlight SGP.31/32 specification to be a huge factor in driving simplicity for eSIM adoption. You can also read further details about the new eSIM for IoT specification in our earlier blog.
The new specification presents important considerations for those building new devices and supporting existing M2M devices. As one of the key architects and players in the multi-year collaborative industry effort to make the fleet management of devices at scale simpler for SGP.32, Kigen has collaborated with TEAL announcing the first-of-its-kind solution suited for the constrained LPWAN devices, something Kigen’s built-for-IoT eSIM OS is well suited for.
Lastly, a question on many minds as we embark on MWC24 Barcelona, is so what is needed for scale. The answer, isn’t a one-shot but a sum of well informed actions that can make eSIM more suited for the manufacturing at scale, simplify management of inventories and reduce the burden involved in getting to true global connectivity. A rarely talked about in industry papers, but a challenge commonly cited by OEMs is that of In-factory Profile Provisioning.
Kigen is proud to have collaborated with Transforma Insights to bring an educative and insightful Transition Topic Position Paper on this subject, titled, ‘In-Factory Profile Provisioning (IFPP): new eSIM approach drives profitability and improves product performance in connected electronics manufacturing’.
In a nutshell:
In-factory profile provisioning (IFPP) is a mechanism for the secure loading of mobile network SIM profiles during the manufacturing and/or order fulfilment process based on characteristics such as the device capabilities or the geographic location into which it is expected to be deployed. The use of IFPP removes the need to manually fit plastic SIM cards into each device and offers an alternative to in-field provisioning which may not be appropriate for many forms of device. In recent months there has been additional focus on IFPP as a GSM Association working group is developing a standard (SGP.41/42) as part of its eSIM/remote SIM provisioning standardisation activities.
This is particularly valuable for power-sensitive applications, such as smart water and gas metering, and for large scale electronics manufacturing where any improvements in process efficiency have an impact on the bottom line.
The benefits of IFPP can be categorised in terms of improving the in-bound and out-bound logistics associated with SIMs (including removing the need to maintain and manage a large inventory of plastic SIM cards), streamlining the process of applying the SIM profile (for instance by removing the manual step of inserting a card), and reducing the power consumption associated with in-field provisioning.
Download this rare and detailed report on learning more about how In-factory Profile Provisioning can support your manufacturing throughput.
Vincent Korstanje, CEO of Kigen, remarked
“Kigen is at the forefront of helping OEMs and ODMs to manufacture and provision their cellular connected devices for in-field deployment. By injecting root of trust keys into secure IC and cellular chipsets early on in the supply chain, along with the timely insertion of In-Factory Provisioning solutions, we help electronics manufacturers streamline the enablement of cellular connectivity in their workflows and deliver better and more cost-effective products at scale.”
We will be discussing this with customers looking to further scale their eSIM adoption and more about customer success stories at the GSMA’s 5G IoT Summit on 28 February 2024 at MWC24 Barcelona – see the full agenda here. Until you get there, don’t forget to pick up the official publication of MWC24 Barcelona: IoT NOW, which features Vincent Korstanje’s conversation with editor George Malim on how and why eSIM can help get Cellular IoT growth to scale and are AI ecosystems agents of disruption?
We may well not be done yet for the full round up for Kigen’s features in news ahead of MWC! So watch this space!
