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Comment by razemio | Hacker News Reader

It is very naive to think it will stay this way. Now that Apple made this move, cell providers in any country will be forced to provide e-sims to stay in business. Apple has such a huge influence it won't take years but months even if it only targets us smartphones.

Other phone manufacturers will follow this decision sooner than later.

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I don't think the average phone provider in Cambodia will worry too much about the list revenue from not supporting a particular variant of iPhone 14.

It will eventually trickle into the low-end android market, especially if it can be used to save cost.

Guessing you don’t live in Cambodia [0].

[0]https://www.statista.com/statistics/930856/cambodia-mobile-o...

Don't live there but did visit back in 2017.

Everyone back then had third-hand used stuff that I suspect was mostly ex-eWaste. Smartphones were not ubiquitous.

I see the graph but don't believe it, especially given how much of their economy is tourism.

Only the US variants lack a physical SIM tray.

At least from the Indian experience, I’d wager that tons of iPhones from the US find their way into other countries because it’s way cheaper to get it from there than pay local prices that may include higher customs duties, higher (than US) taxes, etc. It’s possible that a lot of iPhones in Cambodia are/were originally sold in the US.

That's a very North-American-centric view. You're overestimating influence of iPhone customers on telecom providers - especially in developing countries where they're often <5% of the users.

In developing countries I'm not sure, but the introduction of eSIM on iPhones is why I can get one in an increasing number of European countries, and it makes travel soooo much easier (and cheaper).

I think especially in developing countries e-sims will be huge. They save cost in the end for phone manufacturers and cell providers. It won't take long until low end android phones will have e-sim only options aswell.

Maybe u are right and I am overestimating the influence of apple. Only time can tell.

How large of a market share do you think "immigrants from the US who recently immigrated but still use the iPhone 14 they bought in their origin country" makes up? My bet is that it's quite small in a whole lot of places. Will cell providers really scramble to appease them?

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