Jio recently announced new postpaid plans with three major OTT providers bundled with it viz. Netflix (single-device, mobile plan), Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar. Bundling OTT providers with postpaid plan isn’t a new concept. Airtel and Vodafone Idea (recently co-branded as Vi) had been offering such plans for quite some time now.
While bundled OTTs is a no-brainer strategy for Jio (it gets new postpaid users, who are highly valued in telecom), if you’re wondering how will it benefit Netflix, Prime and Disney+, it’s not that complex either.
In business terms, it’s called B2B2C strategy.
B2B is a business selling its products/services to other businesses. e.g. Schindler selling its elevators to construction companies.
B2C is a business selling its products/services to customers directly. e.g. Netflix selling its services to customers like you and I.
B2B2C is when a company (say B1) partners with another company (say B2) to reach an already activated customer base of B2.
Netflix (B) partnering with Jio (B) to reach customers (C) of Jio. Hence B2B2C.
While Jio benefits by marketing an attractive postpaid bundle, OTT players gain access to new/existing users of Jio. So it’s a win-win situation. The OTT players hope that customers acquired through this route will eventually be activated on their platforms directly, rendering the intermediary business (Jio) useless. While Jio will hope that once acquired customer won’t eventually switch to a competitor even if OTT bundle is removed later.
In fact, Netflix subscription was available with Airtel’s postpaid plans. Not anymore. It can also be a long term strategy, like Amazon Prime Videos. It’s still available with most postpaid plans. So you never know.
At the end of the day, customers win. So enjoy the benefits while they last.
Cover photo by Caspar Camille Rubin
About Tonmoy Goswami
Founder, Storypick.
Read • Travel • Create • Experience⚡
