Premium video streaming in Japan reached 85 billion minutes during January - August 2021, or 13% of total time spent on video, according to the first of a series of quarterly reports from Media Partners Asia (MPA) measuring the Japanese streaming economy. The report, titled “Japan Online Video Consumer Insights & Analytics,” leverages MPA proprietary AMPD Research Platform to measure and analyze streaming media consumption across key VOD services on mobile devices.
The study revealed that the SVOD paying subscribers topped 44 million in August 2021, with Prime Video (33%), Netflix (14%) and Hulu Japan (6%) in the lead. Key factors behind Amazon’s success in Japan include a large library of long-tail content, a bundled e-commerce service, satisfactory platform functionality, distribution partnerships with NTT Docomo and KDDI and competitive pricing. Local titles, particularly licensed anime, drive nearly 70% of Prime Video consumption, while US movies and series account for 20%.
“The premium video segment in Japan is increasingly competitive. Local content is critical, as illustrated by broadcast TV-consortium owned TVer’s growth over 2020-21, while Prime Video and Netflix’s licensed anime libraries have contributed over 40% of consumption on the platforms during 2021. More competition and category expansion is imminent as Disney+ expands with Star and local content in October 2021,” said Vivek Couto, Executive Director at MPA.