New Report Highlights Growing Depth Of The Streaming Economy In Four Markets: Indonesia, The Philippines, Singapore & Thailand
Key Highlights
Netflix and Viu drive premium demand
New entrants iQiyi and Tencent have begun to gain traction
HBO Go steadily grows in select markets
Local platforms iWant, meWatch and Vidio dominate across freemium segments
AIS Play & True ID lead mobile video rankings
Total online video weekly streaming minutes on mobile grew 60% in aggregate across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore between January 20 – April 11, 2020, according to a new report published today by Media Partners Asia (MPA). With the disruption and subsequent lockdown measures enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, total online video streaming weekly consumption reached 58 billion minutes on mobile by April 11, 2020 versus 36.4 billion on January 20, 2020.
The report, entitled Southeast Asia Online Video Consumer Insights & Analytics: A Definitive Study, leverages MPA’s proprietary AMPD Research platform, which evaluates consumer behaviour and usage patterns across the digital economy, including online video & gaming. Using a unique solution that fuses passively observed digital behaviour and empirical survey data, the study is the result of research carried out between January – April 2020 in the four SEA markets with insights collected from a sample of 32,425 individuals. The report also includes detailed analysis and profiles of 43 unique OTT platforms. The report will be updated again in Q3 and Q4 2020. MPA will also release studies using the AMPD Research solution, targeting Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Korea & India markets through Q2 & Q3 2020.
Key findings of the study include:
– YouTube, already dominant, has grown incrementally from its high base during the surveyed period.
– Netflix has benefited from robust pay subs demand across its mobile plans with heavy consumption of its Korean, Anime, and Western Original content (i.e. US & Europe).
– Viu streaming minutes & viewers continue to grow, driven largely by Korean content while its pay subs have spiked up significantly in Thailand and grown steadily in other SEA markets.
– Tencent-owned WeTV has started to grow in Thailand through strategic local content partnerships and Chinese dramas.
– iQiyi, still in soft launch phase in SEA, has grown steadily in Indonesia, the Philippines & Thailand.
– Amazon Prime Video grew most significantly in Singapore through the surveyed period.
– Global & regional players performing well but placed outside of the top five video apps by streaming minutes include HBO Go, Tubi, Viki and iflix. Apple TV’s penetration across the key surveyed markets is low.
– Amongst local players, the study notes significant growth across: (1) SCMA-owned Vidio in Indonesia; (2) ABS-CBN owned iWant; (3) MediaCorp.-owned meWatch in Singapore; and (4) LineTV in Thailand.
– Mobile video platforms continue to grow consumption with the most significant being AISPlay and TrueID in Thailand.
Commenting on the key findings of the report include, MPA executive director Vivek Couto said:
“The penetration of streaming video has increased dramatically during this pandemic as millions have been forced to operate from home. The focus now is on how successfully SVOD platforms will be able to retain newly acquired customers in 2H 2020 and to what extent AVOD platforms can capitalise on the expanded reach. Through the study, MPA analysis indicates that the four markets had a combined 8 million paying online video or OTT customers at end-March 2020, accounting for US$400 million in annual consumer spend. Netflix is a clear leader in most markets, followed by Viu with its freemium service while other players such as HBO, iQiyi and Tencent are well placed to grow in the future along with new entrants such as Disney+. Key local players should be encouraged by increasing consumption and in certain cases, monetisation, in the surveyed markets as they look to invest in scaling their offerings and managing the transition from broadcast to digital video. The onus is now on more robust aggregator offerings from traditional pay-TV platforms and new mobile & virtual operators. As consumer spend between online video & pay-TV re-calibrates, the delivery & distribution of live and on-demand streaming video will be critical in Southeast Asia. Today, consumer spending on online video is ~25% in aggregate of what customers spend on linear pay-TV services in the four markets.”