Netflix is maintaining significant advantages over its competitors with a ‘first-among-equals’ strategy that has given it direct access to subscribers and avoid revenue shares with platforms such as Apple or Google.
According to Omdia’s ‘Bundling’s Impact on the Global Streaming Market’ report, about 98% of Netflix’s bundled subscribers are from pay-TV, telco, and wholesale deals. In contrast, Amazon Prime Video relies more on its own ecosystem, with only 10% of its bundled subscribers coming from external deals, while 85% co-subscribers to the Prime bundle.
Omdia Principal Analyst and lead author of the report Sarah Henschel, said: “The delivery of paid online video subscriptions has evolved far beyond a simple one-to-one purchase agreement between a customer and an operator. We wanted to investigate this in some depth to discover more about how the streamers are making the most of the bundling options open to them.”
The research breaks down bundling types across pay-TV and telco operators, online channel aggregators, credit card and banking services, consumer goods and devices, and co-subscription services.
Netflix was first to move into the pay-TV and telco partnership space in the 2010s, enabling it to reduce churn, and expand with its media partners. But the Omdia report reveals very different strategies among its competitors with HBO Max/Max growing most of its bundled subscribers from legacy pay-TV partnerships and wholesale linear deals. Disney+ focused on a combination of pay-TV, telco and device deals with Disney+ Hotstar in India and US Disney/Hulu/ESPN bundles boosting co-subscription shares. Apple TV+ leaned on its own Apple One bundle and device partnership discounts to scale the service. It has also sought telco bundles such as its T-Mobile deals in the United States and Europe.
