China to push Asian SVoD – without Netflix
October 19, 2016
The Asia Pacific region will have 157.78 million SVoD subscribers by 2021, up from 41.68 million in 2015 and 76.12 million expected by end-2016. The total will be nudging 100 million by end-2017, according to the Asia Pacific SVOD Forecasts report from Digital TV Research.
Rapid smartphone subscription growth means that China will command 47 per cent of the 2021 total SVoD subscribers – up from 38 per cent in 2015. From the 82 million additions between 2016 and 2021, China will supply 34 million, Japan 9 million and India 15 million.
By 2021, 17.5 per cent of the region’s TV households [across 17 countries] will subscribe to an SVoD platform, up from only 5.1 per cent by end-2015 and 9.1 per cent expected by end-2016.
Penetration rates in 2021 will vary from 53.5 per cent in Australia (with four countries above 50 per cent) to 8.0 per cent in Pakistan.
“Although Netflix, Amazon, Iflix, HOOQ and Viu will enjoy rapid growth, they will collectively only account for 16 per cent of the region’s SVOD subscribers by 2021,” advised Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research.
“Netflix is forecast to have 7.59 million subscribers in the region by 2021, up from 3.17 million at end-2016. Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand will together account for nearly three-quarters of the total. Netflix is considered expensive in most other countries. We do not believe that Netflix will launch as a standalone platform in China,” he stated.