More than 6,000 consumers in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were surveyed by Bango, provider of a commerce platform that provides consumer targeting services for online merchants, about their profiles as subscribers of media services.
The survey was conducted as part of a campaign to persuade Telcos to adopt the company’s service platform as a platform to bundle online subscriptions under common management and billing. Bango found that mobile network operators were the most trusted providers of bundled services, at 81% among those surveyed. Conversely, 66% would leave for another service if that other service offered such bundling.
The Bango study also found that 91% of Asian consumers wanted to manage their various subscriptions for streaming, game-play and other purposes, within a single platform or app; and that 89% would pay for more subscriptions if they were simpler to mange. It went on to say that 59% were frustrated that they couldn’t already do so.
Piracy rates
While more than 40% of Asian consumers took just two to three subscription services, about 29% took five or more. 63% of Thai consumers and 79% in Malaysia said they could no longer afford the subscriptions that they wanted, according to results released by Bango. Cost is a major driver of consumers toward pirate services.
Further reading
Uncharted waters: 44% of Asian consumers admit to piracy for streaming content. Press release. October 5, 2023. Bango
Southeast Asia & India subscription consumer survey – Full Report: Subscriber Wars: The Subscriber Stikes Back. Web landing/sign-up page. October 4, 2023. Bango
Why it matters
The main premise behind the Bango research was to identify the level of consumer interest in – and benefits of – all-in-one billing, as suits the company’s value proposition to Telcos. Bango’s data suggested that consumers would be more loyal to, spend more on, or even switch to communications providers to gain access to such bundling, said Bango. This, in turn, would have the effect of reducing consumer motivation toward accessing piracy services, implied Bango.
The piracy rates found by Bango roughly align with piracy rates measured by the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA), although AVIA’s research is mainly to substantiate that site-blocking regulation has reduced piracy by between 40% and 60% in countries where blocking has been implemented.
There is lots of private debate within companies whose business models depend on ad traffic, as to whether or not such anti-piracy measures conflict with their own interests.
