Coronavirus boosts physical goods subscription space

The market for consumer subscriptions for physical goods will grow from an expected $64 billion in 2020 to more than $263 billion in 2025, according to Juniper Research. 

It will overtake the market for consumer digital service subscriptions in 2022, despite the significant lead the digital sector has had in this area, as many different consumer businesses seek to boost recurring revenue.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the physical goods subscription economy into common awareness. Juniper Research also notes that there are few industries that are not amenable to a subscription model.

It expects a global average of two physical goods box subscriptions per subscriber by the end of 2025, in the same way that multiple digital video subscriptions are common.

Consumers in North America and West Europe will generally use more than this, as logistical networks are more solidly in place and subscription models in general are more established.

Multi-service subscriptions will, meanwhile, be a $69 billion industry by 2025. In contrast to many sectors, these will be led by offerings from tech giants, like Amazon’s Prime service and the Apple One subscription, which provide multiple digital services together in a way that many competitors cannot.

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