In short: what matters
- Beeline (beeChina plan) supplies a Chinese number as part of a mobile plan: their SIM is required, and verification needs a passport photo plus a video with the passport in frame.
- KitSim issues a +86 number on its own, with no mobile plan: we need the name in Latin script as in the document and the foreign passport number. No document photos and no selfies.
- The difference is not the number — it is what happens to the account: the master account, transfer from the previous owner and recovery are work a number alone does not do.
- If the account still belongs to the previous owner, a bundled number will not help: the master account has to be recovered onto a new +86 number.
- With KitSim the number is issued in 30 minutes to 2 hours and runs on our side: no SIM to insert, any smartphone works, SMS arrive in the app on your phone.
What a bundled Chinese number gives you
The carrier and China Mobile arrangement works like this: you take a local plan, and a Chinese number is linked to it for calls and SMS. For calling China and receiving codes from ordinary services, that is convenient — one card, one bill.
The limitation is in the model, not the quality: the number is an add-on to a plan, and nobody handles the car or the master account. A Chinese car app is a separate story with its own logic of binding, transfer and recovery.
Where it breaks on a car
- The master account. It is bound to a +86 number permanently. While the car is listed under the previous owner, the new owner cannot bind their profile, enable remote features or update the firmware.
- Account transfer. On sale, the previous owner unbinds the car, the new owner accepts it by VIN, and the confirmation code goes to +86. If the previous owner is unreachable, a new number and a recovery are needed.
- SMS delivery. The code goes only to the Chinese number. If the number is registered to someone else, the car owner is not the one who receives the code.
What to do if you already have a number
If you already have a Chinese number and the app still will not bind, the problem is usually the master account rather than the number: the car is attached to a previous profile. In that case we recover access and move the account to a new +86 number — independently of where the first number came from.
The difference in short
- A bundled number is about connectivity and calls, with video verification, tied to a local carrier.
- A KitSim number is about the job: registration in the car app, master account, transfer and recovery, support in Russian.
- One does not replace the other: some clients already have a bundled number and the app still does not work — because the issue was never the number.