Published by Gigs | March 2026

Recently, 25 million Klarna users in the US opened their app and found something unexpected: a phone plan. Not a link to a carrier. Not a referral deal. A fully branded, unlimited 5G plan, activated in the Klarna app, billed through Klarna, with Klarna's name on it. Klarna had not become a carrier. It had not hired a telecom team or negotiated spectrum rights. It had added mobile the same way it added payments: through a platform built for exactly that.

That moment is what embedded connectivity looks like in practice. It is happening across industries: airlines bundling travel eSIMs into loyalty programs, device makers activating connectivity at point of sale, neobanks turning phone plans into a premium tier benefit. The infrastructure making it possible did not exist five years ago. Today it is a single API call away.

Klarna was among the first, but far from the only one. Revolut launched branded 5G plans in the UK. Nubank embedded travel eSIMs for over 100 million cardholders. LATAM Airlines turned connectivity into a loyalty currency for its frequent flyers. NETGEAR began provisioning eSIMs at the point of device sale. Embedded connectivity is now high on every tech platform's roadmap, not as an experiment, but as a serious new source of recurring revenue from one of the stickiest features a product can offer.

This guide explains what embedded connectivity is, why it is happening now, how the underlying infrastructure works, and who is building with it. It also covers the economics, the key players, and what to look for in an embedded connectivity platform.

What Is Embedded Connectivity?

Embedded connectivity is the integration of mobile services (phone plans, data, eSIM provisioning, roaming) directly into a non-carrier product or platform.

The user never leaves the app. They don't interact with a carrier brand. They sign up, activate, and manage their mobile service entirely inside the product they already use. Their bank, their airline, or their employer is their phone company. The carrier and OS partner powering it all are invisible.

The concept follows a pattern that is already reshaping financial services. Embedded payments let any app accept money without becoming a bank. Embedded insurance lets any platform offer coverage without becoming an insurer. Embedded connectivity applies the same logic to mobile: any product can now offer phone plans and data without becoming a carrier. The infrastructure is abstracted away. The brand experience stays intact.

Old telecom is built around owning the pipe. Embedded connectivity is built around owning the relationship.

Why Is Embedded Connectivity Happening Now?

Over the past few years, three forces converged to make embedded connectivity possible and mainstream.

1. eSIMs Eliminated Physical SIM Logistics

Before eSIMs, adding mobile to a product meant shipping physical SIM cards and asking users to swap hardware. eSIM provisioning is software-defined: instant, remote, and scalable at zero marginal cost. According to ABI Research, eSIM profile downloads are forecast to grow from 366.8 million in 2024 to 1.18 billion by 2030, reflecting how rapidly eSIM is becoming the default activation method across consumer products.

2. API-First Infrastructure Made the Build Manageable

A decade ago, integrating mobile required negotiating directly with carriers, licensing proprietary BSS/OSS software, and hiring a compliance team. Software-defined telecom providers like Gigs compressed that entire stack into a single API integration.

3. Tech Companies Recognized Their User Base as the Distribution Channel

The most expensive part of launching a mobile service is customer acquisition. Traditional carriers spend $500 to $1,100 per subscriber through advertising, retail stores, and promotions. That cost exists because they are starting from zero with every customer.

Tech companies are not starting from zero. A fintech with 10 million users already has the relationship, the trust, and the billing infrastructure. Adding a phone plan means converting an existing user into a mobile subscriber, at a customer acquisition cost of $5 to $20 per subscriber on an embedded platform. That is a 50x to 100x improvement in acquisition economics compared to launching a standalone wireless brand. It is the single most compelling reason embedded connectivity has moved from an experiment to a strategic product decision for tech companies in 2026.

How Does Embedded Connectivity Work?

Embedded connectivity is made possible at the infrastructure level by a Mobile Virtual Network Enabler, or MVNE. The MVNE sits between wireless networks and the tech companies that want to offer phone plans, handling carrier access, eSIM provisioning, billing, regulatory compliance, and support tooling.

Think of it like opening a restaurant. Building mobile without an MVNE is like deciding to also construct your own commercial kitchen from raw materials, source your own gas lines, and obtain your own utility licenses, all before cooking a single meal. An MVNE is the fully equipped kitchen. You bring the menu.

Gigs is the connectivity OS and MVNE powering the embedded connectivity category. Here is how each layer works:

Carrier Access and eSIM Provisioning. Gigs partners directly with MNOs, including AT&T in the US, the largest network in North America. Partners don't negotiate carrier agreements. They inherit Gigs' carrier relationships through a single integration, and provision eSIMs programmatically across both local phone plans and travel eSIMs in 195+ countries. Users activate their eSIM in a single tap inside the partner's app.

Carrier of Record and Compliance. Gigs acts as Carrier of Record for every partner. The tech company never holds a telecom license, files a regulatory form, or remits a telecom tax. Gigs is the regulated entity. The partner is not.

Billing and Operations. Gigs includes native PCI-compliant billing with multi-currency support, AutoPay, and approximately 70% failed payment recovery. The Gigs Dashboard gives partners a real-time view of subscribers, eSIM status, revenue, and support tickets across every market from a single interface.

The result: a tech company can go from decision to first live subscriber in six to eight weeks.

Who Uses Embedded Connectivity?

Four categories of tech companies are building with embedded connectivity in 2026, each with a distinct reason for adding mobile.

Fintech and Neobanks. For fintechs, embedded connectivity solves premium tier differentiation and revenue diversification at once. According to McKinsey, multi-product financial customers have 25% lower churn rates than single-product customers. A user paying their phone bill through a neobank's app opens that app every month, making mobile one of the highest-frequency engagement products a fintech can offer. Klarna, Revolut, Nubank, Sezzle, and OnePay all run branded phone plans on the Gigs connectivity OS in 2026.

Travel. International roaming fees average $10 per day from major US carriers. A travel eSIM embedded in an airline loyalty program eliminates that cost and turns connectivity into a loyalty currency. LATAM Airlines launched a branded travel eSIM in July 2025, the first airline in Latin America to do so, with travelers earning LATAM Pass Miles on every eSIM purchase.

Devices. Device manufacturers can provision an eSIM at the point of sale, creating a smoother user experience and a new recurring revenue stream. NETGEAR expanded into embedded connectivity in 2025 through a global eSIM marketplace powered by Gigs, offering users seamless eSIM access without requiring a separate carrier account.

Enterprise and HR Platforms. For businesses managing global teams, embedded connectivity solves the operational burden of employee phone plan provisioning. Gigs for Work automates eSIM provisioning across 50+ countries, integrating with HR, MDM, and IT systems so lines are assigned at onboarding and reclaimed at offboarding. Mobile becomes an IT workflow, not a manual process.

What Are the Economics of Embedded Connectivity?

The acquisition cost advantage covered above is only half the equation. The other half is revenue.

The revenue opportunity scales across every category. Gigs' fintech and neobank partners earn approximately $480 in annual recurring revenue per active wireless subscriber. For device makers, each connected device with an active eSIM plan generates recurring revenue that didn't exist at point of sale. For enterprise platforms, every employee eSIM line is a managed subscription that replaces a previously manual, costly process. In every case, the mobile revenue is earned from relationships the company already owns.

According to IMARC Group, the global MVNO market reached $83.5 billion in 2024 and is forecast to hit $142.9 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 6.14%. Companies capturing that growth are choosing embedded connectivity over a build-from-scratch approach that costs $5 million to $12 million and takes 12 to 18 months.

Frequently Asked Questions About Embedded Connectivity

What Is Embedded Connectivity? Embedded connectivity is the integration of mobile services (phone plans, data, eSIM provisioning, and roaming) directly into a non-carrier tech product. In 2026, fintechs, airlines, device makers, and enterprises offer mobile under their own brand, inside their own product, without building or operating telecom infrastructure. The carrier and the underlying platform operate invisibly. The brand gets the credit.

What Is the Difference Between Embedded Connectivity and a Traditional MVNO? A traditional MVNO sells mobile as its primary product, competing for subscribers through advertising and retail channels. Embedded connectivity treats mobile as a feature within a product built for a different primary purpose: financial services, travel, devices, or enterprise workforce management. Embedded connectivity partners acquire mobile subscribers from their existing user base at a fraction of traditional carrier acquisition costs. That structural advantage is what makes embedded connectivity the growth model for tech companies in 2026.

How Does a Tech Company Add Embedded Connectivity to Its Product? A tech company adds embedded connectivity through a single API integration with a software-defined telecom provider like Gigs. The Gigs connectivity OS provides carrier access, eSIM provisioning, billing, compliance, and customer support infrastructure through that single integration. The tech company configures its plans and embeds eSIM activation flows in its existing product. Most Gigs partners go live in six to eight weeks, or in days using Gigs Connect, a no-code hosted checkout.

Is Embedded Connectivity the Same as a Travel eSIM? A travel eSIM is one application of embedded connectivity: international data coverage activated via eSIM for users abroad. Full embedded connectivity also includes local phone plans, domestic talk and text, and ongoing subscription management. The Gigs connectivity OS supports both from a single integration, and many partners start with travel eSIM before expanding to domestic plans.

What Is Gigs? Gigs builds the infrastructure that makes embedded connectivity possible. When Klarna launched phone plans to 25 million Americans, or LATAM Airlines activated travel eSIMs for its loyalty members, or NETGEAR began provisioning connectivity at point of sale, Gigs was the platform running underneath. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, Gigs gives any tech company a single API to offer branded phone plans, eSIMs, and mobile data without becoming a carrier. It acts as Carrier of Record, handles compliance across 50+ countries, and partners directly with AT&T in the US. Gigs has raised over $100 million from Ribbit Capital, Google Ventures, and Y Combinator. Active partners include Revolut, Nubank, Klarna, NETGEAR, LATAM Airlines, and many more.

Why Should I Use Gigs? Gigs is the embedded connectivity platform purpose-built for tech companies that want to add mobile services without building telecom infrastructure from scratch. Four things set the Gigs connectivity OS apart: speed (live in six to eight weeks via the API, or days via Gigs Connect, versus 12 to 18 months in-house); compliance coverage (Gigs is Carrier of Record, so partners never hold a telecom license); network quality (MNO-native on the best networks in each country, meaning production-grade 5G from day one with no throttling); and a proven commercial model with named enterprise partners already live at scale across fintech, travel, devices, and enterprise.

The Bottom Line

Every major tech platform is sitting on a distribution channel that carriers would pay billions to access. The ones moving fastest are turning that into a mobile product. Gigs is the connectivity OS that makes it possible in weeks, not years.

There is a compounding dimension worth understanding before you evaluate any embedded connectivity platform. The longer Gigs has been operating, the more activation patterns, billing edge cases, and subscriber growth data it has processed across every vertical and market it serves. That accumulated operational intelligence is built into the platform itself: into the retry logic that recovers failed payments, the eSIM activation flows that minimize drop-off, the support tooling that resolves the most common telecom queries before they reach a human agent. A company launching on Gigs today does not start from zero. It inherits the operational maturity of every partner that launched before it. That is a structural advantage that no greenfield build or new entrant can replicate. Learn more at gigs.com.

Sources: McKinsey, Experience-led growth: A new way to create value; ABI Research, eSIM Market Shipments, 2025 to 2030; IMARC Group, Mobile Virtual Network Operator Market Size and Forecast (2025–2033); Gigs and AT&T partnership announcement, September 2025; Klarna mobile launch press release, June 2025; LATAM Airlines eSIM launch announcement, July 2025; Nubank Ultravioleta eSIM benefit announcement, 2024; Gigs.com.