The most recent report from Media Partners Asia Research Services ensured that the APAC region ‘continues to experience a secular shift from TV to online in terms of engagement and monetization’. Among the points that the consultancy highlighted, it stated that the industry grew 5.5% in 2023 to hit $145 billion in revenue, driven by a 13% jump due online video sector sales to $57 billion, partially offset by less than 1% growth in the TV revenue pie to $98 billion.
MPA report analyzed FTA TV, pay TV, subscription VOD, premium VOD advertising and user-generated content (UGC)/social video advertising across 14 Asia Pacific markets.
Vivek Couto, Executive Director, Co Founder & Owner, commented that China is remaining as the largest and ‘most regulated’ video market, generating $64 billion in revenue in 2023. ‘Ex-China, the largest markets in 2023 are Japan ($32 billion ), India ($13 billion), Korea ($12 billion) and Australia ($9.5 billion) followed by Taiwan and Indonesia, both at around $3 billion’, added.
In fact, excluding China, APAC video industry revenue grew 3.2% in 2023, reaching $81 billion, due to gains from online video sales and also by traditional TV revenue.
Specifically, SVOD grew 15 percent last year across the region, reaching $28 billion in revenue, but excluding China, the amount gained only to 12% to $12 billion. In comparison, APAC AVOD revenues increased 11% to $29 billion, or 13% to $17 billion when excluding China. UGC/social video ‘continues to dominate the AVOD category with 80 percent share, while premium AVOD had 20 percent share in 2023’, said the firm.
Regarding Pay-TV subscription in APAC, revenues showed a marginal declines when excluding China, including revenue declines in such big markets as India and Japan. Also, almost every market in Southeast Asia contracted, explained MPA. ‘Pay-TV advertising grew in India but was decimated in Korea. Free TV advertising was down 2% last year across APAC excluding China, with significant declines in Australia, Indonesia and Korea’.
Consultancy firm also projected that total APAC video industry revenue will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6% between 2023 and 2028 to reach $165 billion, or at a CAGR of 3.3% when excluding China to $95 billion. ‘The APAC online video sector is projected to grow at 6.7% CAGR to reach $78.5 billion in value by 2028, or at 9.2% CAGR to $46 billion in APAC excluding China’, Couto reported.
Advertising remains as an important part of these figures: contributed 51% to the region’s online video revenue in 2023 (or 58 percent when excluding China), but its contribution is projected to grow to 54 percent by 2028 (or to 63 percent when excluding China ), according to the MPA projections.
‘Improved connectivity, rising connected TV (CTV) penetration combined with the growth of local creator economies, investment in premium local content as well as the wide availability of premium sports streaming, will continue to drive dollars and eyeballs online’, Couto remarked.
According to the consultancy, the clear beneficiaries of this boom are global and local digital media companies, who have found opportunities to invest in content knowing current consumption habits. In fact, MPA lists eight companies that had an aggregate 65% share of the APAC online video revenue pie in 2023: Amazon Prime Video, ByteDance (TikTok), Disney, Google-owned YouTube, iQIYI, Meta, Netflix and Tencent’.
However, the APAC region isn’t solely dominated by global streaming giants. Excluding China, Couto noted that «several local players are successfully competing and have considerable scale potential, including Jio Cinema and Zee-Sony in India, Foxtel‘s Kayo and Nine‘s SVOD in Australia, TVer and U-Next in Japan, Tving in Korea, Vidio in Indonesia, and Viu across Southeast Asia.»
