SIM LOCAL
Sim Local (No.19) isn’t in the same league as Everseen, but for the moment it is personally a more lucrative venture for its founder, Killian Whelan (52). He started out in business at the age of 21 with Party Man to organise social functions for corporates. Then he became involved in a vending machine business that was bought by Coca-Cola, followed by the establishment of Sim Local in 2010.
Whelan spotted an opportunity to provide local SIM cards to international travellers, operating from a 175-sq ft kiosk at Dublin Airport. Once the model was proved, Whelan took the idea to Heathrow and then partnered with WH Smith for a ‘shopin-a-shop’ model across the retailer’s 300 airport locations worldwide.
Whelan didn’t do it all on his own, Venture capital company Delta Partners has a 30% stake in the Sim Local parent company, Travelwin, with Whelan and his family speaking for c.60% of the equity. Sim Local (Ireland) Ltd booked a net profit of € 1.5m in the year to November 2018 and had a net worth of € 3.8m at year-end. Shareholders were rewarded with dividends of € 2m, the same as the year before.
A change on the horizon is that SIM cards are going the way of the dodo. “The SIM card is soon to be consigned to history, destined to be seen as a rather clunky stepping stone on the path to technological nirvana, alongside mobile pagers, MP3 players and Palm Pilots,” explains Gary Waite, the company’s head of eSIM strategy “It will be remembered in moments of nostalgia as that fiddly bit of plastic, accessed only through deft use of a bent-out paperclip.”
With eSIMs, people will be able to connect their mobile device to a new network in minutes by tapping on a QR code or downloading an app. And as eSIM-enabled smartphones allow several plans to be stored at the same time, the customer will be able to switch between plans with a menu tap.
While eSIMs are still in their infancy, Apple, Samsung and Google are committed to the transition, and the iPhone 12 uses the technology. Sim Local is preparing for the inevitable with an eSIM platform solution for mobile operators, so that the airport shops will still have a purpose when the SIM card goes the way of the cassette tape. In the meantime, the plastic bounty will keep rolling in for the Rathmines businessman.