Over two decades have passed since the time the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) handed out the initial samples of its SIM cards to a number of officials with the presidential office, followed by a huge wave of demand by the public for their fair shares of the wonderful device, CITNA reported. Launched in August 1994, the project started out with 24 BTS towers in Tehran, holding a capacity of 9200. After a while, TCI established the Mobile Telecommunication Company of Iran to jump-start the expansion of the mobile network. By the end of the past fiscal (March 20), MCI had sold 96 million SIMs out of which 59% were actively used. The first SIM card was developed in 1991 by Munich smart-card maker Giesecke & Devrient, which sold the first 300 SIM cards to the Finnish wireless network operator Radiolinja, according to Financial Tribune.