Stats Detail Asian Fascination for Mobile Videos
- By CDOTrends editors
- February 05, 2018
YouTube is killing it in the Asia Pacific online video market. According to a recent eMarketer study, 45.5% of viewers, or 576.8 million people, will regularly watch video via the YouTube app or website this year.
Viewership growth is continuing. The report estimated the number of YouTube viewers in Asia-Pacific to rise by nearly 13% this year. Australia-based viewers are driving up these numbers. Some 70.4% of internet users in Australia will use YouTube regularly—the highest penetration rate in the region.
Additionally, more than 80% of Asia Pacific digital video viewers will use a mobile device to consume content in 2018 -putting it on par with Latin America for the highest penetration in the world.
Overall mobile video usage is surpassing expectations in the Asia Pacific. Over the past five years, the region saw strong double-digit growth. In 2018, the number of people watching videos on their mobile will increase 14.5%, eMarketer estimated.
"YouTube usage is on the rise and has become the most popular video streaming service throughout Asia-Pacific, except in China where it is censored," Oscar Orozco, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer said. "While regional Netflix adoption is still low, awareness and intent to subscribe are growing. We expect Netflix adoption will continue to expand, while at the same time providing much-needed competition and influence on local streaming providers."
China—where Youku, Tencent, iQiyi, LeTV and Sohu dominate—will have the highest penetration rate of internet users accessing their mobile phone to watch the video this year, at an estimated 65.8%. eMarketer also noted that Australia and Indonesia will also rank highly this year, with penetration rates of 62.9% and 61.7%, respectively. In addition, eMarketer also India and Indonesia to be the fastest growing mobile video markets in the region this year, increasing by 25.3% and 18.2%.
"Online video streaming is on the rise in Asia-Pacific; viewing is primarily occurring on mobile phones," Orozco added. "In China, the availability of content has increased tenfold over the past year, with Baidu's video platform iQiyi inking a content licensing deal with Netflix, while Alibaba's Youku Tudou reached a similar agreement with NBCUniversal and Sony."