With an explosion in the number of people consuming video content as mobile data penetration increases, most major south and south east Asian countries have seen a sharp rise in investment on video content. India, in particular, saw a 24 per cent increase in spending on video content in 2018, taking total investments to USD 3.6 billion from less than USD 3 billion in 2017.
According to the latest edition of Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) Asia Video Content Dynamics report, video content budgets across India, Korea and Southeast Asia climbed 12 per cent in 2018 to reach around USD 10 billion. Asia Video Content Dynamics tracks investment, production and consumption for TV, film and online video across India, Korea and Southeast Asia’s five biggest growth markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam).
MPA notes that the rise in growth, from 8 per cent in 2017 to 12 per cent in 2018, highlights rising competition for audience and production talent, “especially in India and Korea, two of Asia’s most dynamic production and content hubs”. These two markets accounted for over 75 per cent of video content spend across the seven surveyed markets last year.
“Of these, India was by far the biggest dynamo of growth... This surge reflects a major outlay on premium sports rights in 2018, including a big price increase for IPL cricket, supported by continued growth and competition in TV, especially among regional languages outside Hindi heartlands,” it said.
Going forward, MPA sees growth in TV entertainment likely to soften in 2019, due to new regulations on channel pricing and bundling introduced earlier this year although underlying trends remain strong. Video budgets in Korea expanded more slowly, but compared with India, there is more balanced competition between TV majors in Korea.
“Meanwhile, investment in online video content continues to scale, up 60 per cent in aggregate to reach $858 million across the seven surveyed markets, powered by rapid growth in India, boosted by Amazon, Hotstar and Netflix in particular,” observed MPA vice president Stephen Laslocky.