• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, August 9, 2023

Twenty percent of all streaming video subscriptions globally are now sold through bundling partnerships with telco companies, according to a new report on “super bundling” from Omdia, which researches telecoms, media and technology, and the Bango subscription bundling and payments platform.

The analyst-led report also projects that the portion of global streaming subscriptions being used through telco bundles will rise to 25% on average by 2025 and near 50% in Latin America and some other regions within the next five years.

Global revenue from video, music and other subscription-based services sold via telcos are projected to reach $24.8 billion globally this year and $42.8 billion in 2027.

Similarly, earlier this year, Juniper Research projected that the market will grow by $268 billion within the next three years.

A recent Bango survey among 115 senior telco executives in the U.S. and U.K. found 63% reporting that streaming video on-demand (SVOD) subscriptions are currently part of their content hubs (graphic top of page), and 71% reporting significant gains in customer acquisition and retention from incorporating streaming bundles into their offerings.

SVOD subs were also ranked the No. 1 bundle for telcos looking to boost acquisition and retention:

“The quid pro quo of streaming bundles is apparent: while telcos retain and gain customers, content providers tap new audiences,” notes the report.

At the end of March, Omdia identified more than 1,600 partnerships in existence between telco companies and major streaming brands, the most popular of which were with Paramount+, Disney+, HBO Max and Netflix.

Omdia estimates that 16.5% of video streaming revenue this year will originate from telco bundles, climbing to 21.5% by 2027.

So-called “super bundling” — aggregating hard-to-manage subscriptions into single platforms — has emerged as a new revenue stream for telcos. At the same time, it lets content providers reach new audiences at much greater scale than through one-to-one offers or more limited partnerships, notes Bango’s co-founder, Anil Malhotra.

But super bundles, including Apple One and Verizon+play and Optus SubHub, also go well beyond video streaming, to include subscriptions for music, health, productivity and other lifestyle interests.

“There are compelling market drivers at work here, not least consumer subscription fatigue and telcos’ urgent need to differentiate and boost revenue,” says Malhotra. “Super bundling is not only a churn buster — the more services telcos get customers to subscribe to, the more ‘stickiness’ they create — but can also turn into a revenue stream in its own right.”