Survey: Nearly 33% of Hulu Subscribers Bundle With Disney+; Bundling Crucial to Reducing Churn

Many have speculated that the way forward for an increasingly mature streaming market is aggregation. With over 300 subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services currently available to American consumers, sooner or later some will have to be folded into others, or at least bundled together to provide a streamlined product at a lower price for customers who are otherwise spread too thin.

The London-based media analytics firm Ampere Analysis has released a new report which validates bundling as a solution for streaming companies. The report found that the Disney Bundle is an effective tool against price sensitivity among customers, and Hulu’s U.S. sign-up and cancelation rates now mimic those of Disney+ thanks to the bundle, and almost one-third (32%) of total Hulu users have bundled it with Disney+.

For all SVOD platforms, customers who cancel are primarily in younger, lower-income demographics, making them more sensitive to pricing and content changes. Discounted ad-supported tiers can help to mitigate churn with these customers, but bundling is a powerful tool for addressing price sensitivity as well.

“The increasingly competitive SVOD market makes it hard for established services to maintain growth, while newer players continue to see strong gross additions but struggle to retain those customers,” Ampere Analysis analyst Mayssa Jamil said. “Pricing and content offering being the main drivers for sign-up and churn, a great way to aid customer retention is through bundling: it combines both of the above by offering larger catalogues and more frequent content additions at cheaper prices. We see this at play when looking at the way Hulu and Disney+ sign up and churn rates increasingly mimic one another thanks to the strength of the Disney Bundle.”

The similarities in subscriptions between the two services can clearly be seen with Ampere’s graph. Disney+ saw a spike in new sign-ups on Disney+ Day, when titles like “Thor: Love and Thunder” and the live-action adaptation of “Pinocchio” hit the service. The next large peaks fall on Sept. 19, with the Disney+ debut of “Dancing with the Stars,” and on Sept. 30 with the release of “Hocus Pocus 2.”

Interestingly, Hulu also saw corresponding subscription spikes during these periods, a clear sign that the Disney Bundle drove new users to both services. The real question for Disney is whether it can maintain the price-conscious image that the bundle offered before prices changed with the launch of the Disney+ ad-supported tier on Dec. 8. The new subscription option was accompanied by price hikes for most tiers of the Disney Bundle, so it will bear watching to see if customers continue to view it as a good bargain in the coming months.

Stacking and market saturation are real dangers to some streaming services. U.S. homes have access to an average of 4.5 SVOD services each, and with monthly subscription fees rising across the industry, many budgets won’t allow for an expansion past that mark. Companies like Disney that have the ability to bundle their services together at a lower price point have a marked advantage in both driving new sign-ups and decreasing churn.