Subscription video on demand (SVOD) has started to scale in Southeast Asia (SEA), with real consumption and monthly spend accruing to between three and four platforms in each market, according to research from Media Partners Asia (MPA) affiliated AMPD. On average, customers now subscribe to two services in capital cities across emerging SEA. The number is trending past 2.5. 

“We believe that Covid-19 has cemented and accelerated streaming video as the new normal,” says Anthony Dobson, MPA VP & MD, AMPD Research.

“However,” he warns, “if we don’t see a V-shaped economic recovery, churn among SVOD will be filled by AVOD players (existing & new)”. AVOD remains dominated by YouTube.

Dobson also says much more is expected in 2H 2020 through Tencent, iQiyi and Disney+ in key markets. 

Regional streaming players Netflix and Viu led SVOD across SEA in minutes streamed in Q1 this year, AMPD Research shows. The survey involves a passive panel of 4,000 users+ across Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. 

Big local Q1 gainers include Vidio (Indonesia) and Line TV (Thailand), while Tencent’s WeTV is gaining rapidly in Thailand and Baidu’s iQiyi is slowly rising in Indonesia and Thailand.

iflix streamed 3.5b minutes in Q1 2020, driven largely by Indonesia and mostly anchored to local movies and series.

Korean content is a significant driver across the board, including for regional streamers such as Netflix and Viu and also for local players such as Video and RCTI+, which has been monetising through AVOD. Viu maintains a freemmium model (though pushing more content to SVOD in Thailand and Indonesia, where is performing particularly well). 

Dobson says churn may increase in the second half of this year as consumers burn through libraries. 

Though local & regional freemium platforms are growing in key markets – CPMs and macro factors remain the key impediments to ad monetisation in 2020.