Asia-Pacific will boost OTT subscriptions by 2019

The emergence of key OTT players in the Asia-Pacific region will contribute to the significant increase in OTT subscriptions in the coming four years. A report by Jupiter Research reveals that subscriptions from providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime will generate $31.6 billion by 2019 compared to $8 billion in 2014.

These results will be achieved due to the continued growth in the established markets of West Europe and North America, along with forecasts in the Far East and Asia Pacific regions. The report states that the rapid uptake would cause even more competition for “pay TV incumbents, allowing distributors such as Sling TV to provide customers with a cheaper, tailored alternative to cable TV, driving the trend for cord-cutting.”

Whilst key players such as Netflix and YouTube have launched 4K services, the adoption of ultra-HD content has been slow thus far. Juniper is predicting this to change over the next 2 years. Netflix added its 4K offering to its highest priced subscription package last year, showing belief that consumers are willing to pay for higher quality content, while OTT providers are gaining recognition as being the first to supply viewers with content in this new format. Meanwhile, 4K TVs will continue to become more affordable, accelerating hardware take-up.