New research from Ampere Analysis shows that HBO Max has the largest bundling footprint among streaming services across 20 major global markets. The regional picture varies, with Disney+ driving more partnerships in North America and Netflix in Western Europe. HBO Max’s footprint is particularly strong in Central and South America and Central and Eastern Europe.

Across the 20 markets tracked by Ampere Analysis, HBO Max leads the streaming bundling landscape, with a total of 60 unique bundle partners spanning pay TV, telcos and other streaming platforms. This is followed by Disney+ (52), Netflix (47), Apple TV (27), and Amazon Prime Video (26), highlighting the importance of partnerships in streaming services’ distribution strategies.

HBO Max also leads streamers in terms of the scale of its partnerships, featuring in 303 packages with partners, ahead of Disney+ (289), Netflix (263), Apple TV (174) and Amazon Prime Video (161).

The bundling landscape and the ranking of streaming services by bundle partnerships differ across regions. In North America, Disney+ features in the most bundles, while Netflix leads in Western Europe. Meanwhile, HBO Max’s partnerships are concentrated in Central and South America and Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting the service’s legacy distribution model in these regions. Brazil, the US and Poland host the largest number of HBO Max bundles, with 30 different bundle partners across the three markets.

A significant number of HBO Max partnerships take the form of ‘hard’ bundles, which account for 44% of the service’s partnerships. Ampere defines hard bundles as packages in which the streaming service is included as a fixed component and cannot be disaggregated. Examples include the upcoming HBO Max bundle with Sky Ultimate TV in the UK.

Jaanika Juntson, Research Manager at Ampere Analysis, says: “HBO Max’s strong bundling footprint reflects the continued importance of operator relationships in streaming distribution. As competition between platforms intensifies, partnerships with telcos, pay TV providers and other streamers are becoming an increasingly important tool for expanding reach in saturated markets. For streaming platforms, these partnerships provide an important way to reach new audiences while reducing subscriber acquisition costs as well as aiding retention.”