Asia surfs increasing high wave of streaming

Drilling deeper regionally after showing that there was no pandemic peak in global streaming, Conviva has released data showing Asia is no exception to worldwide trends and experienced 46% year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2021.

Data for the Q3 2021 State of Streaming: Asia report Conviva’s State of Streaming report was primarily collected from Conviva’s proprietary Stream Sensor technology currently embedded in nearly four billion streaming video applications, measuring in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 200 billion streams per year with nearly three trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries.

The study found Asia’s streaming growth was led by the western and south-eastern regions of Asia, which increased 200% and 164%, respectively, with the eastern and central regions showing more modest growth at 34% and 22%, respectively.

Asian viewers consistently consumed streaming content on smaller screens, with desktop (49%) and mobile (33%) viewing taking the top spots in viewing time by device for the third quarter. Big screen viewing, which consists of connected TVs, smart TVs and gaming consoles, was low in Asia compared to the rest of the world, with just 14% share of viewing time. Western Asia was the only region to watch predominantly on the big screen.

Yet despite big screen viewing time receiving this relatively small share of the overall viewing time in Asia, Android TV, with 52% of the big screen share, was solidly Asia’s television of choice. Amazon Fire TV was second with 22% followed distantly by Samsung TV with 8% and LG TV with 6% share.

Asian sports leagues were increasingly using video to drive engagement. Asian sports leagues, including the Indian Premier League (IPL), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) were shown as recognising the benefit of using social video to reach their fans and saw a significant increase in engagement year over year with total cross-platform engagements up by 36%, despite a 19% decrease in videos posted. The IPL saw the biggest year-over-year increase in engagement, up 201% in July, 32% in August and 23% in September.

Yet Conviva also found quality remained a mix bag for the region. Asia recorded the worst buffering percentage globally at 0.98%, yet all global regions were under 1% for the first time – a significant accomplishment. Asia was also the only region to see no improvement year over year in picture quality and offered the lowest bitrate of any region at 2.20 Mbps. However, the analyst also noted that Asia did see what it called a “remarkable” improvement in video start failures, down from 44% to 1.13%, but worsened 35% in the time it took for videos to play.

“Streaming viewership in Asia – and worldwide – shows no signs of slowing, making it imperative for publishers to focus on delivering the best possible viewing experience in this region,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva commenting on the Q3 2021 State of Streaming: Asia report “By focusing on optimising experience and viewer engagement, publishers can not only expand their audience internationally, but also drive consumer loyalty in Asia that will yield dividends for years to come.”

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