China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom have officially received approval from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for commercial eSIM mobile phone service trials, and have launched eSIM mobile phone services nationwide.
According to Xinhua News Agency, China Telecom announced that eSIM mobile phone services are now officially available for sale nationwide. Consumers can go to business outlets to apply for and activate eSIM mobile phone services, or make appointments online via an app and then go to the reserved offline outlet to complete the service.
China Mobile stated that it will provide a full range of eSIM product support, not only covering mobile phones as the core communication device but also extending services to smartwatches, tablets, in-vehicle devices, and other forms, to achieve seamless cross-terminal and cross-scenario connection and collaborative work.
eSIM mobile phone service is a technology that integrates the functions of a physical SIM card into a chip embedded in the mobile phone. After purchasing a phone with eSIM functionality, consumers do not need to insert a physical SIM card and can have their number written into the phone's built-in eSIM chip via over-the-air download. The business functions of eSIM phones and physical SIM card phones are the same, allowing users to make voice calls, access data networks, send and receive text messages, and use other communication services.