eSIM for 160 countries: Holafly launches global data tariffs

Spanish start-up Holafly aims to attract business customers and globetrotters in particular with a new eSIM offering. In addition to the established offering of temporarily valid eSIMs for individual travel countries, Holafly now also offers eSIMs with data volume that can be used for one month in over 160 travel destinations.

The "Light" tariff, which includes 25 GB of data volume for just under 50 euros per month, is available immediately. This can be used in the approximately 160 countries where Holafly has network partners. In the near future, a "global unlimited tariff" is also planned, which will include unlimited data usage for just under 65 euros per month. The tariffs will automatically renew for one month at a time unless cancelled.

The target group is people who travel a lot. Holafly has business travelers primarily in mind. Although only about three percent of business trips from Germany go to non-European countries, the provider calculates. However, these caused disproportionately high roaming costs for companies.

Market observers expect the economic viability of classic roaming agreements between network operators to come under pressure as more and more customers are no longer tied to the physical SIM card and their network operator's roaming partners thanks to eSIM. While revenues in international roaming are still growing, they are expected to decline in the coming years, while users' data hunger increases.

"Roaming will cease to exist"

"Roaming as we know it today will cease to exist," is convinced Holafly CEO Pablo Gómez. "It dates back to a time when there were fewer international trips and lower data usage."

Market researchers at Juniper Research expect global travel eSIM revenue to grow from around 990 million US dollars in the previous year to 1.8 billion US dollars in 2025. By 2030, it is expected to reach 8.7 billion US dollars. eSIMs are an attractive alternative not only for companies to the often expensive traditional roaming tariffs outside the EU.

Market researchers expect that as eSIMs become more popular, network operators will also push into the market to avoid losing revenue entirely to competitors. In Germany, Vodafone has already launched an eSIM offering. But other sectors such as neobanks like N26 and Revolut are marketing eSIMs as part of their account tariffs.

Pure Data Tariffs

The Holafly tariffs are pure data tariffs; phone calls are not part of the package. Experience with customers shows that they prefer to use messengers like Whatsapp for calls anyway, says Gómez. "But we are always working on improving our products." In addition to eSIM, Holafly also wants to provide its business customers with a platform for managing and allocating eSIMs to employees.

The eSIMs connect to networks in initially around 160 travel destinations. Holafly works with various local network operators and providers. As a rule, more than one network is available abroad. However, users have no influence on the network selection; Holafly automatically selects the strongest network available at the location. Holafly is always identified as the network operator on the mobile phone. Users therefore do not have an easy way to recognize the network currently in use.

Gómez and his business partner Yingyan Hu founded Holafly as an eSIM provider for travelers in Murcia, Spain, in 2017. The company's headquarters are now located in the Irish capital, Dublin. According to its own statements, Holafly has issued around 12 million eSIMs to date. The company competes with a growing number of eSIM providers, including Airalo, Saily, and Travsim.

(vbr)