While people are reining in discretionary spending such as going out and buying new clothes in a bid to save money, there are signs that the digital subscriptions market could buck the trend. Despite increased pressure on wallets and household budgets, people are less keen to cut back on their digital subscriptions.

The assessment was made by Anil Malhotra, the Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Bango, in an interview with Juniper Research.

“Subscriptions are a significant part of household spending now,” Anil told Juniper.

“Recent consumer spending data shows that the average spend on socializing is going down, but the average spend on media subscriptions consumed at home has increased,” he said.

Super Bundling is changing the business model of the subscriptions economy

Bango’s own research carried out last year found that 85% of Americans have at least one subscription. While Juniper Research predicts that the number of subscriptions per person in the US is set to increase from 2.2 in 2018 to 5.3 by 2026.

Despite the continued appetite for digital services, those businesses powering the subscriptions economy need to adapt to changing consumer demand if they are to maintain revenues.

“While the good news is that consumers respond positively to subscriptions…the bad news is that during a recent survey, 78% of consumers surveyed in the US stated that they felt they had too many subscriptions,” said Anil.

Consumers want greater control of their subscriptions

Interestingly though, the meaning of that stat is not as straightforward as it might first appear.

“There is a curious paradox,” explained Anil. He pointed out that while these consumers could not articulate why they felt they had too many subscriptions, “more than seven in ten of the same consumers said they would likely take out more subscriptions if they were simpler to manage and easier to control.”

That’s why Super Bundling — which allows customers to flex their subscription selection while providing an effective aggregation, distribution and management points for millions of consumers — is becoming increasingly attractive to telcos and content providers.

“Many global carriers have done basic bundling where they have taken one third-party service and bundled it into a data plan,” said Anil. “However, Super Bundling boosts this activity by an order of magnitude.”

According to Bango, almost six in ten (58%) of subscribers would leave their current TV/broadband/mobile provider if this service became available elsewhere.                        

“My advice for carriers is to make the switch from simple bundling to Super Bundling,” Anil told Juniper Research, “as this will give telcos the power to meet the consumer need for control, flexibility, and choice.”

You can read the full interview with Anil here.