India leads streaming subscriptions in Asia with $196 billion in revenue
According to Media Partners Asia’s recently released Asia-Pacific Video & Broadband 2026 report, streaming services, social video platforms and connected TV will dominate screen revenue growth in Asia Pacific through the end of this decade, even as traditional television continues to structurally decline.
The Singapore-based research firm predicts that total screen revenues in the region will reach $196 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of 2.8% between 2025 and 2030. All net growth will come from online video, which is expected to grow at a 7% CAGR over the period.
Premium video on demand – which includes both subscription and ad-supported models – will add approximately $12.5 billion in additional revenue between 2025 and 2030, reaching $52 billion by the end of the decade. Japan, China and India will lead this growth, followed by Australia, South Korea and Indonesia.
India will overtake China as the largest SVOD subscription market by 2030, with 358 million individual subscriptions. However, India’s premium VOD revenues – including both subscriptions and advertising – will remain 4.5 times smaller than China’s and 2.5 times smaller than Japan’s, due to lower average revenue per user (ARPU).
User-generated and social video revenues are expected to grow even more dramatically, adding $11.4 billion to $44.5 billion by 2030. That makes creator-led platforms the biggest growth engine in the Asia-Pacific screen economy, according to MPA’s annual industry analysis.
Traditional television, meanwhile, faces a cumulative revenue decline of $8 billion over the same period, driven by continued weakness in linear advertising and pay-TV subscriptions. China, Japan and India will account for almost 70% of that contraction, while Australia and Korea together will contribute more than 15%.
Connected TV has become a structural growth engine throughout the region. MPA estimates that the number of CTV households in the Asia Pacific, excluding China, is now almost 160 million and is expected to reach almost 100 million by 2030. Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia have the largest installed bases. The shift to big-screen viewing significantly improves engagement, pricing power and advertising revenue.
Market concentration among online video platforms is increasing, with the top 15 accounting for 58% of total online video revenues by 2025. YouTube, Douyin and TikTok from ByteDance and Netflix lead the field, alongside strong national champions such as JioHotstar and U-Next.
Japan and India are emerging as the top two contributors to rising video and streaming revenue growth outside of China, albeit through different dynamics. Japanese growth is driven by higher average revenue per user, supported by more expensive subscriptions, local content and sports differentiation. Indian growth remains more volume-driven, but is increasingly supported by monetization upgrades, ad-supported offerings, expected ARPU increases post-2026 and the increasing use of CTV.
Premium AVOD revenues are expected to grow from $8 billion in 2025 to over $12 billion in 2030, led by India, Japan and Australia, followed by South Korea and Indonesia. Platforms across the region are raising prices, introducing next-level products and bundling premium sports and local content.
User-generated and social video platforms remain the main beneficiaries of online video advertising growth. Outside of China, YouTube, Meta and ByteDance’s TikTok are responsible for the bulk of the additional spending. In China, Douyin, Kuaishou and Tencent are market leaders. Short-form platforms are also moving towards episodic consumption, with microdramas emerging as a measurable revenue category in China and expected to gain relevance in India, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand.
AI-based tools are used in content development, localization, post-production and marketing, reducing unit costs and accelerating production timelines. MPA notes that this dynamic will strengthen economies of scale and favor platforms with large libraries and diversified monetization strategies.
“Value is shifting decisively towards streaming, social platforms and CTV-driven monetization,” said Vivek Couto, CEO and Executive Director of Media Partners Asia. “Markets with scale, pricing power and strong local content ecosystems will continue to outperform, while the traditional television economy faces long-term structural erosion. What separates the winners in this cycle is not just volume, but also the ability to monetize premium experiences anchored by sports, premium local programming, emerging formats such as microdramas, and increasingly AI-enabled efficiencies across the content value chain.”
