Development In November 2010, the
GSMA began discussing the possibility of a software-based SIM. In March 2012, at the meeting of the
European Telecommunications Standards Institute,
Motorola noted that eUICC is geared at industrial devices, while
Apple foresaw eSIMs in consumer products. The eSIM was released in March 2016. In March 2017, during
Mobile World Congress,
Qualcomm introduced a technical solution, with a live demonstration, within its
Snapdragon hardware chip associated with related software (secured Java applications).
First devices launched with eSIM In February 2016,
Samsung released the
Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G smartwatch, the first device to implement an eSIM. The first Apple device released with eSIM technology was the
Apple Watch Series 3, released in September 2017. In 2018, it introduced it to
iPhone, with the
iPhone XS and
iPhone XR, and
iPad, with the
iPad Pro (3rd generation). The first iPhone models lacking a SIM card tray and requiring use of eSIMs were the
US-sold
iPhone 14 and
iPhone 14 Pro, announced in 2022. Outside the United States, all iPhone models continue to be sold with support for physical SIM cards, but the
iPad Air (6th generation),
iPad Pro (7th generation), and
iPad Mini (7th generation), announced in 2024, work exclusively with eSIM. As of September 2025, the
iPhone 17,
iPhone 17 Pro are eSIM only in a number of countries, touting larger batteries in this configuration, and the
iPhone Air is also Apple's first device with no physical SIM capability in any country. In October 2017, Google unveiled the
Pixel 2, the first mobile phone to use an eSIM, available via its
Google Fi Wireless service. In 2018, Google released the
Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL and in May 2019, the
Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL, with eSIM support for carriers other than Google Fi. While the Pixel 3 series only supported one concurrent SIM or eSIM, the Pixel 3a series supported dual-SIM with one physical SIM and one eSIM. Starting with the
Pixel 7, dual eSIM became supported, but one physical SIM card can still be used. US-sold
Pixel 10 series devices (except the
Pixel 10 Pro Fold) were the first devices by Google (outside of select carrier-locked
Sprint Nexus devices) that lack physical SIM card slots, therefore requiring use of eSIMs. In December 2017,
Microsoft launched its first eSIM-enabled device, the
Microsoft Surface Pro LTE. In 2018, Microsoft also introduced eSIM to the
Windows 10 operating system.
Motorola released the 2020 version of the
Motorola Razr, a
foldable smartphone that only supports eSIM. Samsung shipped the
Samsung Galaxy S21 and
S20 in North America with eSIM hardware onboard but no software support out of the box. The feature was enabled with the
One UI version 4 update in November 2021. ==See also==