Online video revenue to boom in Asia-Pacific

Revenue from online video services will more than triple by 2020, according to new research.

The Media Partners Asia (MPA) report predicts net revenues across 13 Asian countries will grow from US$3.5 billion in 2014 to US$12.4 billion by 2020, an average annual growth of 23.5 per cent with advertising contributing more than four-fifths of the total. The subscription sector, largely driven by subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platforms such as Netflix, is predicted to growing from less than US$700 million in 2014 to more than US$2.3 billion by 2020.

According to Rapid TV News, the report “also highlighted large-scale global digital brands like Netflix and YouTube expanding rapidly in a number of Asian markets or readying to launch in key territories over 2015 and 2016”. 

The report goes on: “OTT was certainly hot in Asia, [where] the data showed that active Asia-Pacific OTT video subscribers reached 594 million in 2014, with China accounting for more than 85% of the market size in 2014 but set to fall to 80% by 2020. Other notable markets in 2014 were Korea, India, Japan and Hong Kong.

“By 2020, MPA projects that active OTT video customers will near the billion mark,” the report says. “The market for subscription-based OTT video reached 75.3 million active subs in 2014 and is expected to reach 225 million by 2020. China will be the largest contributor, driven by connected TV and set-top box platforms and online video companies offering premium services. Japan, Korea, India and Australia will likely emerge as material opportunities, powered by SVOD, but India will trend towards more a “freemium-oriented” model.