In a few short years, telco music bundles have gone from a useful ancillary revenue stream to a core component of the streaming landscape. Despite long standing issues about how success can best be measured, telcos continue to invest heavily in music deals that are unlikely to ever deliver direct profit but that instead help drive metrics across the rest of their businesses.  Meanwhile streaming services get otherwise unobtainable marketing support and rights holders get large revenue guarantees.  On the surface it is an everyone wins situation.  However, under closer scrutiny it is clear that there are structural and partner issues that must be addressed if bundles are to remain a vibrant business stream.

Companies Mentioned In This Report: Apple, AT&T, Celcom Axiata, Cricket Wireless, Deezer, Deutsche Telekom, Digi Malaysia, Globe Telecom, KPN, MetroPCS, Muve Music, Now TV,            Omnifone, Rhapsody, Rogers, Sky, Spark New Zealand, Spinnr, Spotify, Telia, T-Mobile USA, Vodafone, YouTube, Yonder

Methodological note: For the purposes of this report MIDiA interviewed a dozen senior executives from record labels, music services and telcos on condition of anonymity. Their responses are aggregated and anonymised in this report.