The study found Asia's streaming growth was led by the western and south-eastern regions of Asia, which increased 200% and 164% (Image Source: Pixabay) Streaming adoption continues to gain around worldwide, and Asia is no exception—experiencing 46 percent year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2021, according to a report titled “Q3 2021 State of Streaming: Asia” by Conviva, a measurement platform for streaming media.
Despite predictions of a “pandemic peak”, Asia’s streaming growth was led by the western and southeastern regions of Asia, which increased 200 percent and 164 percent, respectively, with the eastern and central regions showing more modest growth at 34 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
The company’s data also revealed that Asia consistently consumed streaming content on smaller screens, with desktop (49 percent) and mobile (33 percent) viewing taking the top spots in viewing time by device.
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 percent share of viewing time. Western Asia was the only region to watch predominantly on the big screen.
“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 of Conviva. “By focusing on optimizing 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.”
Android TV continues dominance in Asia
Despite big screen viewing time receiving only 14 percent share of the overall viewing time in Asia. Android TV, with 52 percent of the big screen share, was Asia’s television of choice. Amazon Fire TV (22 percent) was second followed distantly by Samsung TV (8 percent) and LG TV (6 percent) share.
Quality remained a mix bag for the region. Asia recorded the worst buffering percentage globally at 0.98 percent, yet all global regions were under 1 percent 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. Fortunately, Asia did see a remarkable improvement in video start failures, down from 44 percent to 1.13 percent, but worsened 35 percent in the time it took for videos to play.
Meanwhile, Asian sports leagues, including the Indian Premier League (IPL), Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) recognized 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 percent, despite a 19 percent decrease in videos posted. The IPL saw the biggest year-over-year increase in engagement, up 201 percent in July, 32 percent in August and 23 percent in September.
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