Juniper Research predicted an explosion in the number of IoT connections delivered using eSIM in the years to 2026, with the logistics industry, and oil and gas extraction sectors tipped to drive growth.

In a report, the company forecast the number of IoT connections using eSIM would increase from 22 million this year to 195 million by the end of 2026.

The jump will see the proportion of eSIMs employed for enterprise and industrial IoT uses, as opposed to the consumer sector, move from 3 per cent globally to 6 per cent.

By 2026, it expects logistics, and the oil and gas industries to lead the way in adoption to account for 75 per cent of all eSIMs in use. This is due to those industries’ reliance on LPWA business models which “necessitate the use of mass deployment processes”.

Juniper Research attributed the anticipated boom to increased popularity of eSIM management systems and other platforms cutting the cost of deploying multiple connections at the same time.

It claimed many older systems had “hindered the growth of eSIMs in the IoT market by limiting the number of devices that can be provisioned and managed via a single user interface”.