IMEI number or IMEI code is a 15-digit number that is assigned to your phone by the device manufacturer. In any region of the world, IMEI number for a phone is unique and only one phone can have that number. IMEI is acronym for International Mobile Equipment Identity and it is used to identify your mobile device over a network. When you connect to a cell tower of your mobile service provider, your phone sends the IMEI code to the cell tower among other information to identify itself.
Some of the phones that come with place for two or more SIM cards, have more than one IMEI numbers – one for each of the SIM slots. So if you have a dual SIM phone, your phone has two IMEI numbers. And if your phone has place for putting in three SIM cards, then it would have three IMEI numbers.
Usually you do not have to know about these IMEI numbers for any phone at all. You can live your entire life without knowing the IMEI number of any of your phones. But the importance of IMEI numbers becomes evident when we lose the phones or they get stolen. In that case we have to write down the IMEI numbers when filing a report in the police station.
So here is a simple way to find out the IMEI number of any phone number- in your smartphone’s phone dialer, dial the code *#06# and your phone will display the IMEI numbers on your screen. This method has existed in the mobile phones since the early 2000s and still works in 2020.
Other places where you can find the IMEI numbers printed are the box in which the mobile phone came, the sales package, the bill that you received when you bought the phone, inside the phone cover, over the phone cover and more. Some phones even come with multiple stickers containing the IMEI code so that you can paste them somewhere on the phone.