The future of the SIM: potential market and technology implications for the mobile ecosystem

B2B has emerged as a strategic growth area for operators and the wider tech/digital ecosystem. As the digital transformation of vertical sectors accelerates, gaining insights directly from enterprises is key. GSMA Intelligence surveyed more than 430 enterprises across six countries in Africa, from 10 vertical sectors, to gain insight into their digital transformation. The research focused on strategic objectives, investment plans, use of technology, deployment challenges, supplier decisions, tech sovereignty, and policy and regulation.

This edition of the Industry Checkpoint series focuses on digital industries, highlighting how the market has changed in the last six months and its implications. The report considers four major developments: European operators intensifying their activities in sovereign cloud services; mobile networks growing their relevance with the emerging drone/UAV industry; operators in Japan accelerating their work in the physical AI space; and robotaxi services preparing for launch in Europe.

Telecoms operators have a distinct role to play in tackling fraud and scams. Their access to network intelligence allows them to reveal scam indicators earlier in the attack chain than other ecosystem participants can. The GSMA Data Exchange Proof of Concept shows that privacy-preserving telecoms data sharing is both feasible and effective. Its learnings provide a blueprint for moving beyond isolated pilots towards trusted, ecosystem-wide scam-intelligence infrastructure.