Netflix Inc. is set to increase its spending on the original content in Asia. Planning to double the amount of what they are spending at the moment by 2021, Netflix is set to rule over the local giants that normally have a stronghold in the Asian continent. The news was earlier revealed by Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content. Though the exact amount hasn’t been revealed yet, research firm Media Partners Asia has calculated it to be around 1 billion dollar. As Netflix was introduced in 2015 in Asia, it has produced close to 220 Netflix original and licensed titles over the past 5 years.
With shows like ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Indian Matchmaking’, Netflix garnered and broke records when it came to enticing people from the Asian countries. Especially this year has seen an immense increase in the amount of subscribers logging on to Netflix, than in their recent years. Asia Pacific added 46% of the Netflix’s new users for the quarter to September, making it the largest contributor for subscribers than any other region.
With Netflix trying to set a stronghold onto Asia, it has to fight with the regional rivals that already have a very high amount of attention. Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li’s Viu and WeTV from the house of Tencent Holdings Ltd. are two of the strongest contenders. Along with Disney’s Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video, both of which are again two of the top platforms to provide regional content, will be Netflix’s competitors as Netflix plans to increase the regional content.
The year 2020 saw the highest amount of subscribers coming to Netflix as people had to stay at home, they turned to online content. Asia bought the highest amount of subscribers for the year to Netflix and this boosted Netflix to produce even more original contents to remain in the lead.
As we look into why Netflix is gaining popularity in the continent we can come up with three plausible factors.
Quality content
As Netflix already has some of its originals releasing across the continent, it has looked into great storytelling and this proved to be really advantageous for the streaming giant. Original content and stories have helped Netflix to lure in more and more people. For example, for India Netflix has been seen to produce better stories and quality content than most Bollywood theatrical released movies. Also the Korean and Japanese content are two of such things that are loved by people everywhere and Netflix is providing them with truck loads of such content
Korean Dramas and Japanese Anime
Two of the most loved content that comes from the Asian continent are K-Dramas and Anime. With Netflix announcing to make the Korean version of the worldwide phenomena, “La Casa de papel” and another announcement that has declared that Netflix will be coming up with 5 brand new anime, the energy is high. Over the last few years, Netflix has increased the size of their library when it comes to both of these genres, which again acted as an added benefit as most people are fans of such content.
The Pricing Point
The pricing factors are what pull the viewers to streaming platforms. With Viu and WeTV having way cheaper and better pricing factors, Netflix upped its game by introducing cheaper mobile plans in countries like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines which has boosted the viewers subscription to an all time high, pushing it to a whopping 23.5 million subscription. With this, Asia Pacific became the highest contributor for subscription and also made Netflix the fastest growing amongst all four of its contenders.
The benefits are a lot, but countries like India recently passed a law for monitoring content of OTT platforms. Followed by Vietnam and Thailand who are planning to bring such similar law, this somehow pushes Netflix to a risk. Though the content to be produced and shown in some Asian countries has become an issue after some government regulations, Netflix has adhered to the laws and will respect whatever it will bring and comply with it by producing content that doesn’t hurt or affect any party.
The challenges are extreme and increased, but as Netflix has planned to double the spending on its Asian specific content, it will for sure come up with ideas and stories that will easily cross the challenges put ahead of them.