How Many SIM Cards Are Made Each Year? The Arithmetic of Going Digital (2026)

🔢 Sustainability Series 2026

How Many SIM Cards Are Made Each Year? The Arithmetic of Going Digital (2026)

Updated August 2026 · Written by a company that sells eSIMs — the key numbers are linked or named in the sources note so you can check us

The world still manufactures billions of plastic SIM cards every year, each one destined for a drawer, a bin, or the back of a phone case. Below, we take the industry's own published numbers and work out, step by visible step, what would stop being made if those cards went digital — showing every multiplication and saying plainly which numbers are ours.

First, the scale of the thing

According to GSMA Intelligence, the mobile industry now supports 8.8 billion wireless connections, of which 5.8 billion are unique subscribers — around 70% of everyone alive. The ITU counts even higher: 9.2 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions in 2025, or 112 for every 100 inhabitants. Why do two respected bodies land four hundred million apart — the gap between those two totals? Different definitions and methods — a connection is a SIM active on a network, a subscription is an account reported to regulators — but both totals exceed the human population for the same reason: many people hold more than one SIM.

Feeding that base, IDC's tracker put global smartphone shipments at 1.26 billion units in 2025, up 1.9% on the year. And behind every connection sits a piece of SIM hardware. Here the split matters: the Trusted Connectivity Alliance estimates the market for traditional plastic SIM cards was still 3.5 billion units in 2025 — with member volumes growing 6% — against 605 million eSIMs shipped. For every digital SIM, the world still stamps out nearly six plastic ones (3.5 billion against 605 million — our division). That is the number the rest of this article works on.

The what-if: 3.5 billion cards that were never made

Suppose every traditional SIM manufactured in a year became a downloaded profile instead. What physically stops existing? Three things we can price honestly: the plastic, the CO2e from making it, and the water embedded in it. Each step multiplies at most two published figures, and we round down.

Step 1 — the plastic

Thales, one of the world's biggest SIM makers, says a SIM as shipped in its card carrier weighs around 4 grams, and that at 4.5 billion cards a year the industry uses an estimated 20,000 tonnes of plastic and other polymers. Scaled to TCA's 2025 volume: 3.5 billion cards × ~4 g each is roughly 14,000 tonnes of plastic a year — our arithmetic, using TCA's volume and Thales's weight. (Scaling Thales's own 20,000-tonne total to 3.5 billion cards would give about 15,500 tonnes; we use the lower figure.)

Step 2 — the CO2e from producing it

The European plastics industry's own eco-profile, published by PlasticsEurope and ECVM, puts cradle-to-gate production of suspension PVC — the classic card plastic — at 2.03 kg CO2e per kg. So 14,000 tonnes of plastic × 2.03 is roughly 28,000 tonnes of CO2e a year — again our arithmetic, and a floor, because it covers only the raw resin, not printing, lamination, packaging or transport.

Step 3 — the water

The same eco-profile reports 42.1 kg of water consumed (excluding sea water) per kg of S-PVC. Applied to 14,000 tonnes of plastic, that is over half a million tonnes of fresh water a year — our arithmetic once more, and again the narrow figure: total water use including cooling is 175.6 kg per kg, roughly four times higher.

Do these numbers pass a sanity check against what operators themselves publish? Vodafone reported that merely halving its SIM carrier saved more than 340 tonnes of plastic and more than 5,000 tonnes of CO2e a year — one operator, half of one card. Its own factor of up to 15 tonnes of CO2e per tonne of plastic includes production and transportation, which is why it dwarfs our resin-only 2.03. Veolia and Thales's recycled-plastic Eco-SIM programme was designed to avoid 5,000 tonnes of virgin plastic and 15,000 tonnes of CO2 — the implied 3-to-1 ratio is our division, not theirs. Against those anchors, our 28,000-tonne figure looks conservative, as intended. The full comparison is in our eSIM environmental impact deep-dive.

The drawer full of dead SIMs

Travellers are a small but telling share of SIM volume: a tourist SIM often lives only as long as the trip itself — from the airport counter straight to the drawer. Juniper Research forecasts travel eSIM users growing from 40 million in 2024 to over 215 million by 2028. Every one of those is an airport SIM someone didn't buy: one fewer card, plastic backing card and blister pack in the drawer. (For the ones already in yours, see what happens to old SIM cards; for queues and cost, airport SIM vs travel eSIM.)

The silicon side, honestly

Chips are where electronics gets genuinely thirsty. A state-of-the-art fab uses between 2 and 4 million gallons of water per day; TSMC alone uses more than 150,000 tonnes of water daily. And imec's virtual-fab model puts an advanced-node wafer at roughly 1,600 kg CO2eq to manufacture.

So does going digital delete a chip? No — and we should be straight about that. An eSIM is an eUICC chip soldered onto your phone's board at the factory, there whether you ever use it or not; a SIM's chip is also tiny and made on mature lines, not the advanced nodes those headline figures describe. What a downloaded profile eliminates is not silicon: it is the plastic around the chip, the packaging around the plastic, and the logistics around the packaging. That is the honest boundary of the claim — and it is still 14,000 tonnes of plastic a year.

The urban-mining kicker

Per UNITAR and the ITU, the world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022 and properly recycled only 22.3% of it — while the metals embedded in that single year's waste were worth $91 billion. The ITU notes there is 100 times more gold in a tonne of discarded mobile phones than in a tonne of gold ore. Materials already above ground beat digging up new ones — the strongest argument for hardware that ships as a download, a theme we expand in sustainable travel connectivity.

Where the switch is actually heading

This is not a hypothetical transition. GSMA forecasts 2.5 billion eSIM-enabled smartphone connections by 2028 and eSIM at 42% of all SIM technologies by 2030; GSMA Intelligence expects consumer eSIM penetration to double in 2026 and double again in 2027. TCA's 2025 shipment data — eSIMs up 18%, profile downloads up 43% — says the curve has already bent. If your handset is on the list in eSIM-compatible phones 2026, going digital means your eSIM is installed before you fly — our installation guide walks through it.

What this arithmetic ignores

Honesty section. First, the eUICC chip is soldered into every modern phone anyway — the silicon is spent regardless of how you connect. Second, a SIM card is a rounding error next to the phone it goes into, and the phone is a rounding error next to the flight: buying an eSIM does not offset or meaningfully reduce your flight's emissions, and we will never suggest it does. Third, an eSIM changes nothing about network energy use — the towers run either way. Fourth, not every SIM can be an eSIM today: billions of handsets in circulation, and plenty of operators, still need plastic. Fifth, our plastic figures use the industry's PVC eco-profile as a proxy; real cards mix polymers, which is why we anchored against operators' own published totals rather than leaning on one factor. The what-if is a ceiling for the card industry, not a promise from us.

Frequently asked

How many SIM cards are made each year?

The Trusted Connectivity Alliance estimates the traditional plastic SIM market at 3.5 billion units in 2025, alongside 605 million eSIMs shipped. Thales and Veolia estimated production at around 4.5 billion cards in 2020, so the plastic total is drifting down as eSIM grows.

How many phones are in the world?

Nobody counts handsets directly, but GSMA Intelligence reports 8.8 billion wireless connections and 5.8 billion unique mobile subscribers — about 70% of the global population — and IDC counted 1.26 billion new smartphones shipped in 2025 alone.

Why do GSMA and ITU report different totals?

GSMA counts 8.8 billion connections; the ITU counts 9.2 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions, or 112 per 100 inhabitants. They use different definitions and collection methods, but both exceed the human population because many people hold multiple SIMs.

How much plastic do SIM cards use every year?

Thales estimates about 20,000 tonnes of plastic and other polymers at 4.5 billion cards a year. At 2025's 3.5 billion cards, our own conservative arithmetic — volume times Thales's ~4 g per card — gives roughly 14,000 tonnes.

Does an eSIM get rid of the chip?

No. The eUICC chip is soldered into the phone at the factory whether you use it or not. What an eSIM removes is the plastic card, the packaging and the shipping — not the silicon.

What share of SIMs will be digital by 2030?

GSMA forecasts that eSIM will represent 42% of all SIM technologies by 2030, with 2.5 billion eSIM smartphone connections by 2028 — so most SIMs will still be physical for years yet.

Do travel eSIMs actually reduce waste?

Each airport SIM a traveller doesn't buy is one fewer card, plastic backing card and blister pack — Juniper Research expects travel eSIM users to grow from 40 million in 2024 to over 215 million by 2028. Honestly, though: the flight is vastly larger than any SIM either way.

The card you never buy

We sell eSIMs, so read our conclusion knowing that. But the arithmetic above is checkable against the sources named below: no card is printed, nothing is shipped, and the profile arrives by email. If your phone supports it, the digital option is simply the one where less stuff gets made.

Over 200 destinations · Installed before you fly · From $3.90Find the eSIM for your destination →

All industry figures were checked against the primary sources named below in August 2026: GSMA Intelligence and GSMA Mobile Economy 2026, ITU Facts and Figures 2025, Trusted Connectivity Alliance (March 2026), IDC via trade press, PlasticsEurope/ECVM PVC eco-profile (2023), Thales/Globe and Veolia programme releases, Vodafone newsroom (2019), Juniper Research, imec, and the UNITAR/ITU Global E-waste Monitor 2024. Calculations marked as our arithmetic combine those published figures and are rounded down; they are estimates, not study results. AeroSims prices checked August 2026 and subject to change.

Deciding which provider to buy from? Run our two-minute test: Which eSIM provider should an eco-minded traveler pick? →