Asia Video Content Spend to Hit $15 Billion in 2026 as Streaming and Local Film Draw Capital, Media Partners Asia Report Finds

Streaming and local film account for nearly all new spending as television budgets shrink. The study covers India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. MPA puts 2025 spending across the seven markets at $14.8 billion and projects it will reach $15.4 billion by 2031. Oscars: Hungary Selects Ildiko Enyedi’s ‘Silent Friend’ for International Feature Race (EXCLUSIVE) Three Films, and a Second Oscar? How Penélope Cruz Could Dominate Awards Season With 'La Bola Negra,' 'The Invite' and 'Bunker' Television still takes about 60% of the total, against 30% for online video and 10% for film. Korea, at $6.9 billion, and India, at $5 billion, together made up roughly 80% of 2025 investment. Popular on Variety “The viewership data shows demand is intact. Premium VOD engagement continues to grow across India, Korea and Southeast Asia, streaming now leads content investment in India, and local stories are winning at the box office from Hanoi to Jakarta and Mumbai. This is a story of reallocation rather than retreat as capital moves toward streaming and local film, where both audiences and returns are growing,” said Myat Pan Phyu, an analyst at MPA. The money picture is less rosy. The region’s media businesses have big audiences and plenty of creative talent, yet the report finds that this reach is not reliably turning into healthy profits. Many long-established companies trade well under their equity book value. In MPA’s view, the firms that build value will be the ones that spend capital wisely, trim costs and defend the content that genuinely sets them apart. India hit a turning point last year. Online video claimed 46% of the country’s content investment in 2025, edging past TV at 42% and taking the lead for the first time. Indian viewers logged 420 billion hours of online video over the year. JioHotstar holds a 58% share of premium VOD viewing in the country and has more than 180 million paying subscribers. In Korea, TVING ranks a clear second in the market behind Netflix. Indonesian platform Vidio, which leads its home market with more than 6 million paying subscribers, has been EBITDA-positive since the fourth quarter of 2025. Sports rights are what set streamers apart, according to MPA. Cricket helped push JioHotstar’s connected-TV reach up 26% during the 2026 Indian Premier League cricket tournament, while exclusive KBO baseball coverage took TVING from 5.3 million to 6.5 million subscribers. Coupang Play has built the widest premium sports offering in Korea. Vidio spreads Indonesian football, the Champions League and the Premier League across its pricing tiers.