Pacific Money | Economy

A Brief History of Southeast Asia’s Streaming Wars

The region offers a market with untapped potential for streaming entertainment, and one where disposable income is likely to rise in the years to come.

In 2025, the market for streaming services in Southeast Asia grew 19 percent, tallying more than 60 million paid subscribers by the end of the year. Given this is less than 10 percent of the region’s estimated population, it’s probably safe to assume there is room for growth. Big global streamers as well as home-grown brands have been fiercely competing for viewers, and the strategies and content they are experimenting with have traced a fascinating arc across the region’s media ecosystem over the last decade.

Netflix was the first big foreign streamer to enter the region in 2016, part of a larger effort to break into global markets. Despite their first-mover advantage, it wasn’t easy. Consumer preferences can be very location-specific, so original and licensed content that worked for American audiences needed to be adjusted for local tastes.

Moreover, the streaming giant ran headlong into some political roadblocks. For a long time, Netflix was blocked on wireless and broadband networks controlled by Indonesia’s state-owned telecom giant Telkom. Telkom has the largest market share in Indonesia, so Netflix was essentially being frozen out of the biggest potential subscriber base in Southeast Asia.

The ban was lifted in 2020 and Netflix soon after started carrying a lot of locally produced content and doing development deals with big-name Indonesian directors and producers. By 2025, Netflix had more than 12 million subscribers across Southeast Asia’s major markets but was starting to face stiff competition.

Disney launched its own streaming service in Southeast Asia in 2020, which had about 2.6 million subscribers by the end of 2024. HBO also launched a regional streaming service in 2020, but response has been more tepid. After undergoing a rebranding, HBO Max trailed its main rivals with an estimated 1.4 million subscribers in 2024.

Among big American brands, Netflix is clearly leading despite generally being the most expensive. In addition to getting in first, Netflix has invested in local production and often carries content that local consumers want, such as South Korean television shows. Indeed, when it comes to consumer choice in Southeast Asia, one should never underestimate the power of the South Korean pop culture juggernaut.

Viu, a Hong Kong-based streaming service that specializes in South Korean content along with some original productions, had an estimated 10 million subscribers in Southeast Asia last year, more than HBO and Disney........

© The Diplomat