SERVICE PROVIDER STRATEGY
MULTI-PLAY MUST INCLUDE IN-HOME AND AT-LARGE WI-FI BUNDLING
PAY TV SERVICES ARE BEING IMPACTED BY OVER-THE-TOP (OTT) OPTIONS
In our most recent Global Consumer Telecoms Survey focused on the changing landscape of Pay TV providers, we found that the impact of Over-the-Top (OTT) providers has been significant around the world, with 18.7% of global OTT subscribers having either reduced or cancelled their Pay TV services since subscribing to their OTT service.
Of those customers that had reduced or cancelled their Pay TV service, we found that 35.1% would have maintained their current Pay TV subscriptions had their services been bundled, allowing them a single source to easily search, discover, and watch all of their content, including OTT online video and internet content.
Our Global Consumer Telecoms Survey also found that the majority of consumers (54.2%) were not looking to bundle their Wi-Fi access outside of the home with their existing mobile and at-home communications services. This bundling opposition stems largely from the current consumer attitudes towards Wi-Fi services offered outside of the home, with 42.3% of consumers surveyed identifying poor connections and slow speeds as the major issues with Wi-Fi connectivity outside of their home connections.
MULTI-PLAY SERVICES IS THE ANSWER TO OTT SERVICES
For CSPs looking to engage consumers with multiplay offers, our survey result is of particular importance, as it indicates the level of service that must be provided to customers in order to justify bundling services (such as Wi-Fi access outside of the home), and the existing attitudes towards such bundled services that CSPs must overcome in order to provide appealing bundled services.
In our survey, we found that fewer than half (47.6%) of all respondents engaged in dual-play, triple-play, or quad-play services, indicating that there is a large and untapped opportunity for CSPs to offer multiplay services to consumers, allowing them to consolidate their existing digital communications services under one provider.
Expanding on this opportunity is our finding that digital consumers are increasingly spending more time on OTT services, such as VOIP and OTT messaging services (such as WhatsApp), and that these OTT services are now coming close to the usage levels of traditional voice and SMS messaging offered by CSPs. Further compounding this OTT service usage is the fact that our survey respondents identified that their most popular mobile activities, such as watching online video via YouTube or Netflix (the median time spent by consumers on this activity was 878 minutes per month) is done outside of carrier networks, relying on Wi-Fi connectivity inside or outside of the home.
This finding underlines the increased revenue pressure CSPs will face as consumers spend less on regular mobile services, and that for CSPs that do not provide multiplay bundles to consumers, such as mobile connectivity and at-home and at-large Wi-Fi connectivity, there is a large portion of consumers that can be attracted by multiplay offerings that provide one-stop access for both Wi-Fi and mobile connectivity.
