In a world full of choices, it often becomes difficult to catch the attention of consumers, let aside create a loyal base. But then, it is through the loyal base of users that businesses will create a robust mechanism to earn revenue. This revenue is subscription-driven money. Sample this: the market size of the digital subscription economy worldwide amounted to $650 billion in 2020. At the time, subscriptions to cloud services accounted for roughly 45% of the market, with an estimated value of around $292 billion. Meanwhile, the market size of the e-commerce segment was forecast to reach $687 billion by 2025.

In India, in the last three-four years' subscription, as a business model has been picked by an array of businesses from digital news publishing to consumer tech, ride-hailing, insurance, video streaming platforms, music apps, and retail players, among others. In fact, now these businesses have gradually focused on acquiring customers through various targeting marketing initiatives besides using data analytics to understand factors such as propensity to spend, and the kind of product or services bought frequently. To give a perspective, as per Statista, IT was a key sector for the digital subscription economy in 2020, accounting for 39% of the global market. In the same year, media and communication services held the second-highest market share, representing 34% of global digital subscriptions. Overall, the market size of the digital subscription economy worldwide reached $650 billion in 2020.

At the Indian Express Online, this is our first endeavour with the Subscription Conclave to talk about this burgeoning sector, the learnings and the challenges, which lie ahead.