Who owns the connectivity customer?

Kaleido Intelligence tagged the eSIM segment with a $5BN retail spend at MVNOs World in Amsterdam in June this year.

More important than the headline number is what it indicates: travel eSIMs are becoming a widely adopted way to stay connected.

For MNOs, it prompts an important strategic question. You may be providing your customers’ main mobile service, but are you still part of the journey when they discover and purchase connectivity through other digital channels?

How much do you really own?

It’s an important question because owning the primary mobile relationship doesn’t necessarily mean owning every part of the customer’s connectivity experience anymore.
An MNO may have a strong, long-standing relationship with the customer. They’ve been a loyal subscriber for years, they pay their monthly contract, and the operator has no reason to doubt.

But when that customer travels, suddenly they encounter connectivity through a travel app, booking platform, airline, bank, or another digital service. Third-party Travel eSIM specialists or digital-first brands can then shape the purchase experience and build their own relationship with the customer, even though the operator remains central to delivering the connectivity.

MNOs start from a strong position because they have already built the customer relationship. However, when travel eSIM is not part of the digital channels customers use, valuable connectivity spend can move elsewhere.

This is why customer ownership is now about more than subscriber numbers. It is about staying relevant across the customer’s wider connectivity journey and making services easy to discover and purchase through the digital channels they use.

Choosing How to Participate

Counterpoint Research expects third-party travel eSIM downloads to grow by nearly 3x between 2025 and 2030, but even by 2030, most travelers will still look to their home operators for roaming connectivity.

The direction of the travel eSIM ecosystem is clear, but MNOs’ place in it isn’t yet carved in stone. Digital-first brands have momentum, but MNOs remain the preferred provider.

They have existing relationships, infrastructure, and most importantly, trust that can provide a strong foundation for remaining part of the connectivity experience when customers travel.
The question is how to approach it. And the answer can be distilled into three broad options:

• Direct relationships

• Distribution partnerships

• Multi-channel models

1. Direct Relationships: Deliver What Your Customers Want, When They Need It

The direct approach is to sell travel eSIM options to the customers you already have. Realizing this opportunity means making travel eSIM a natural part of the operator’s digital customer experience. Customers should be able to find and purchase the right service without having to choose between the trust of their operator and the convenience of another provider.

MNOs already have what it takes: an existing customer profile, billing infrastructure, and everything in between. Integrating travel eSIM into that experience can help strengthen their role across the wider connectivity journey.

2. Distribution Partnerships: Reach Customers Through the Brands Already in Their Journey

Although many customers will automatically turn to their MNO, some will see organizing a travel eSIM as another part of booking a trip.

It’s why airlines, booking platforms, and banks are gaining traction with eSIM add-ons. They are present in their customer's digital journey, making connectivity feel like a natural part of booking or managing a trip.

For MNOs, this represents a wholesale opportunity to reach customers through digital journeys that already exist. Whether a white-label or co-branded offering, the operator can manage the end-to-end connectivity while the partner integrates travel eSIM into its own customer experience. It’s a model that allows each party to focus on its strengths while creating a simpler route to connectivity for the traveler.

3. Multi-Channel Models: The Best of Both Worlds

For many MNOs, a multi-channel model can provide a balance between strengthening the direct relationship and extending reach through selected partners. The operator can sell directly to its own customers while also enabling offers through selected partners.

Connectivity is essential, but it is increasingly behaving like a lifestyle purchase. The same user may arrive at their eSIM purchase in different ways across different trips. By supporting more than one route to purchase, the MNO can remain part of the path to purchase, wherever it begins. 

Turning Customer Trust Into Opportunity

Customers do not think about connectivity in neat industry categories. They value services that fit naturally into the digital experiences they already use, and it’s why digital-first brands are building momentum.

A monthly mobile relationship remains a valuable foundation, but it no longer automatically extends to every connectivity purchase. Instead, MNOs need to consider whether they remain relevant when the customer’s connectivity needs move beyond home connectivity.

So, who owns the connectivity customer? Currently, the answer can change from one purchase to the next. Operators have a strong foundation from which they can extend their role across the wider connectivity journey, but they need to move quickly. By strengthening their direct channels and reaching customers through carefully selected partners, they can participate wherever connectivity is discovered and purchased.

Telna gives operators the infrastructure to sell travel eSIM directly under their own brand or integrate offers into third-party digital channels, without building a separate platform for each route to market. Stay close to the connectivity and the customer, wherever the purchase begins, with Telna’s integrated connectivity platform.

For more on how MNOs can leverage customer relationships and other advantages to take a slice of the travel eSIM market, read our whitepaper "Travel eSIM for MNOs: A Guide to Owning the Journey".

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