Dual Sim card phones – Are they coming?
You are tired of all the extra charges imposed by your smartphone carrier, and you are ready to call and cancel the service. Your new carrier, while they will port your mobile number over to a new account, is unable to give you a SIM card that fits your phone, so you will have to buy a new phone, which is a lot more expensive than absorbing the cost of the extra charges imposed by your existing carrier. You hang up the phone and reconsider. While this is not always the case, as some smartphones have multiple frequency availability, the problem also occurs when you have a good cell plan but a poor data plan. In the US it is impossible to separate cell and data carriers as your smartphone would need to be able to accept two different SIM cards, and they don’t.
That said, dual SIM card phones are available and quite popular in China and India, and have appeared in some European countries, under the guise that one SIM is for personal use and the other for business use, but there is no rule that says they can’t be used separately for cell and data services. Or to allow you to switch carriers on a short-term basis when deals become available without buying new phones. That said, current versions of dual SIM phones are unable to use both SIM cards for LTE service simultaneously, but that is expected to change with a series of new chips that will support the dual LTE function.
Alas, such smartphones are not available in the US, Korea, and Japan, and carriers are happy that such is the game, however Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) is expected to release a dual SIM version of the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Note 9, and rumors abound that the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 9 family will also have dual SIM capabilities and are expected to be available in most markets. This will likely have the effect of giving customers more options and carriers will need to offer plans that make it easier for customers to pick services. If the two smartphone giants take the plunge into dual SIM phones for these markets, it will also make it far easier to shift carriers and likely fees will be restructured to compensate. We note that in the US the cost of running a mobile phone averages $35.62[1] (2015) and is the 6th highest worldwide with the Netherlands the highest at $41.47 and Bangladesh the lowest at $1.42, with China at $4.07 and the UK at $16.45.
[1] ITU "Measuring the Information Society Report 2015" Table 4.2
That said, dual SIM card phones are available and quite popular in China and India, and have appeared in some European countries, under the guise that one SIM is for personal use and the other for business use, but there is no rule that says they can’t be used separately for cell and data services. Or to allow you to switch carriers on a short-term basis when deals become available without buying new phones. That said, current versions of dual SIM phones are unable to use both SIM cards for LTE service simultaneously, but that is expected to change with a series of new chips that will support the dual LTE function.
Alas, such smartphones are not available in the US, Korea, and Japan, and carriers are happy that such is the game, however Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) is expected to release a dual SIM version of the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Note 9, and rumors abound that the Apple (AAPL) iPhone 9 family will also have dual SIM capabilities and are expected to be available in most markets. This will likely have the effect of giving customers more options and carriers will need to offer plans that make it easier for customers to pick services. If the two smartphone giants take the plunge into dual SIM phones for these markets, it will also make it far easier to shift carriers and likely fees will be restructured to compensate. We note that in the US the cost of running a mobile phone averages $35.62[1] (2015) and is the 6th highest worldwide with the Netherlands the highest at $41.47 and Bangladesh the lowest at $1.42, with China at $4.07 and the UK at $16.45.
[1] ITU "Measuring the Information Society Report 2015" Table 4.2
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