Digital video will overtake physical in East APAC by 2017
September 17, 2015
The video markets of 12 East Asia Pacific countries tracked by Dataxis are forecast to generate total digital video revenues of $4.31 billion in 2017 – surpassing the physical video market for the first time driven by fast-growing, high-speed broadband penetration.
Japan and South Korea generated about $400 million in digital video revenues in 2007 – (96.7 per cent of the region’s digital total) mostly from digital video rentals as Download-To-Own and SVoD services only began to take hold from 2010. By 2014, however, digital video revenues in Japan and South Korea had risen to $1.92 billion with SVoD particularly popular on mobile devices in Japan. Dataxis estimates that Japan had 10 million SVoD subscribers end-2010 and should see a ramp in growth with the expected launch of Netflix by end-2015.
The four main markets in the region (Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea) together accounted for about 96 per cent of total digital and physical video revenues end-2014, with Australia and Japan alone generating about $5.4 billion in physical video revenues, representing more than 90 per cent of total physical revenues across the region.
However, Southeast Asia is plagued by piracy and the official physical video market is almost negligible. Unauthorised CDs, VCDs, DVDs and CD ROMs proliferate due to the lack of affordable digital content and low disposable incomes. Indonesia, for example, had 5.75 million Pay-TV subscribers end-2014, but only two pay-TV players offered VoD services and Dataxis estimates that just 1.5 per cent of Indonesian TV households will be VoD-enabled by 2018.