On 28 May 2026 the GSMA published the SGP.32 v1.3 specification, alongside a matching SGP.31 v1.3 architecture update. Most vendor pages and explainers still reference v1.2. Both things are true at the same time, and the distance between them tells you most of what you need to know about the state of automotive eSIM management right now.
The specification is moving faster than the certification programmes behind it. For automakers, SGP.32 planning in 2026 turns on two separate questions. What does the standard permit today, and what have your suppliers actually been certified against?
Below is where SGP.32 has reached, what it changes for OEM fleets, and what is coming next.
Where SGP.32 stands in 2026
The specification has moved past v1.2
The GSMA published SGP.32 v1.0 in May 2023. Version 1.2 reached stable, certifiable form in late 2024 and remains the baseline against which eUICC chips, eIM platforms and SM-DP+ servers are formally certified. Version 1.3 arrived at the end of May 2026.
Certification programmes and vendor documentation will take months to catch up, so the two versions will run alongside each other for a while. For procurement teams, the useful question to put to a supplier is which version they hold formal certification against, and when they expect to certify against v1.3.
Certified hardware is shipping and operators have gone live
Kigen announced the first market-ready eIM compliant with v1.2 in October 2024. Certified eUICC hardware now ships from Kigen and Thales, with certified modules from Quectel and others entering production designs.
Telenor IoT began commercial delivery of SGP.32 SIMs on 17 April 2026, the first major operator to move from pilot into production. KORE and Kigen announced a joint SGP.32 portfolio in the same month. The IoT Stars community also ran the first independent multi-vendor switching test in April 2026, moving live devices between connectivity providers using a GSMA-accredited eIM.
Where the ecosystem is still thin
Cross-vendor interoperability sits at an early stage of validation. A deployment that combines a eUICC operating system from one supplier, an eIM from a second and an SM-DP+ from a third has fewer proof points behind it than the vendor messaging suggests. Tooling that connects eIM management to existing device management platforms is still maturing.
Forecasts have shifted accordingly. Kaleido Intelligence forecasts the installed base of SGP.32 eSIMs rising from 4.9 million to 192.8 million by 2028. Growth of that shape starts from a small base, and commercial acceleration has moved into the second half of 2026 and into 2027.
What SGP.32 means for automotive eSIM management
The eIM removes the integration dependency
Under SGP.02, changing a profile requires cooperation between the subscription management infrastructure of the donor and recipient networks. The SM-SR is fixed at eUICC manufacture, which ties the vehicle to one provisioning stack for life.
SGP.32 works differently. The eIM instructs an IPA on the device, and the IPA fetches the profile from the SM-DP+. No QR code, no driver involvement, no integration between the two operators’ platforms. An eIM can be associated with a eUICC at any point in the vehicle lifecycle, and a single eUICC can be linked to more than one eIM.
As Cubic3 Senior SIM Engineering leader Julie Gibb put it in our Q&A with Thales, earlier standards enabled remote provisioning but kept automakers tied to a single network operator.
Localisation is still the reason most OEMs move
Brazil, India and Turkey enforce rules against permanent roaming. Others require personal data to be handled in country. Remote provisioning lets a vehicle localise onto a domestic network after it arrives in market, without physical handling and without the current provider’s agreement.
One caveat carries real weight for compliance teams. SGP.32 does not deliver regulatory compliance on its own. The profile the vehicle localises onto has to be compliant itself, and there is a wider set of obligations around know-your-customer rules and data sovereignty that sit outside the standard entirely.
Mixed fleets are the operational reality
The SIM operating system is not upgradeable and the IPA is implemented at manufacture, so any given vehicle supports one standard for its life. Over the next two to three years most OEMs will be building vehicles against different standards and supporting all of them across a 15-year field life.
That makes the management layer the thing that matters, more than the standard itself. A common portal and a common set of APIs mean the team running the fleet sees the same functionality regardless of which standard a given vehicle carries. Cubic3 Cloud manages the full lifecycle of both M2M and IoT eSIMs in parallel, handling profile switching, operator onboarding and certificate management across 550 networks and more than 200 countries.
Thales has also reported that most OEM proof of concepts request validation using IPAe, the variant that sits on the eUICC rather than on the device, because it eases the transition without changes to the TCU.
The future state of SGP.32 for automakers
Multiple enabled profiles
Thales Marketing Director Florent Abat has pointed to Multiple Enabled Profiles (MEP) as a planned addition in a second version of the standard. MEP would let a vehicle run several operator profiles at once, so telematics stays live if one network fails while infotainment and passenger Wi-Fi are managed separately. For autonomous driving programmes, that redundancy moves from useful to necessary.
5G Standalone changes what localisation is worth
Network slicing and quality on demand depend on 5G SA core networks, and for the next three to five years those features will be largely unavailable over roaming. Roaming agreements are thin and much of the functionality remains network-specific. The way to reach it is to localise onto a particular operator’s network, which turns remote provisioning into a prerequisite for the services OEMs want to sell rather than an efficiency measure. Transforma Insights expects SGP.32 to become the dominant approach to remote SIM provisioning.
What to ask before you commit
- Which version of SGP.32 the supplier holds formal GSMA certification against, and when v1.3 certification is expected
- Whether the IPA is IPAe or IPAd, and what that requires from the telematics hardware
- Who operates the eIM, and whether a second eIM can be associated later in the vehicle lifecycle
- How SGP.02 and SGP.32 vehicles appear inside a single management interface
- Which markets have compliant local profiles available, beyond headline network reach
- What cross-vendor interoperability testing has been completed, and with which partners
The standard is real and shipping. The variable is how much of the integration burden an OEM chooses to carry itself. Managing dozens of operator contracts, billing relationships, profile inventories and back-end changes is work that scales badly, and it is the reason most buyers route it through a managed service.
Our eBook SGP.32: How eSIM Innovation is Changing the Game for Connected Vehicles goes deeper on migration planning, and our earlier piece covers how eSIM underpins the software-defined vehicle.
Run one platform across both standards
See how Cubic3 Cloud puts your legacy and SGP.32 fleets behind one interface.
