Telcos redirecting their spending into infrastructure upgrades could impact how much they shell out for content deals across the Asia Pacific, Aravind Venugopal, VP of Media Partners Asia (MPA), told APOS delegates in Bali this morning.<\/p>\n
Venugopal\u2019s session, which opened day two of APOS, looked at the region\u2019s digital landscape, particularly the impact of telcos in the video space.<\/p>\n
Mobile broadband consumption in terms of gigabytes per month has been trending upwards, he said, at a rate of at least 25 percent CAGR over the last five years. \u201cIn markets like India, it\u2019s grown at 230 percent CAGR over the last years. In a market like Taiwan, [average data use has] gone to roughly 15 to 20 GB a month, driven by data.\u201d<\/p>\n
In most markets, however, network speeds are decreasing. \u201cThe networks are under increasing pressure; they are reaching maximum capacity. As we move towards 5G, those networks need to be upped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Telco operators are investing in infrastructure upgrades, Venugopal said. \u201cIf there is an uptick [in capital expenditures], the operators need to take that money away from somewhere. Is it going to be from content spend?\u201d<\/p>\n
Venugopal also presented data on two key digital players in Asia: India\u2019s Hotstar and China\u2019s iQiyi. Sports is driving Hotstar\u2019s consumption, accounting for 65 percent of usage, versus 35 percent for entertainment, led by IPL cricket. Entertainment on Hotstar attracts 7 million to 8 million unique users per day; sports delivers 15 million to 20 million users per day.<\/p>\n
iQiyi has created a pan-entertainment ecosystem in China where video is just one small piece of a pie that also includes news, social media, live broadcasting, e-commerce, and books and comics. \u201cYou can expect to see this model coming into Southeast Asia,\u201d Venugopal said.<\/p>\n
On iQiyi\u2019s content spend, Venugopal said it has risen\u00a0from about $500,000 in 2015 to $1.2 billion last year, about half of which is on original productions. \u201cThey are doing 70 to 80 titles a year on their own\u201d in the variety and drama segments.<\/p>\n
In Southeast Asia, from 2010 to 2013, live streaming and short-form dominated the nascent digital ecosystem. From 2013 to 2017, as private equity and VC money started coming into the system, TVOD and SVOD rapidly evolved in the region. This year sees short form coming back and more activity around live streaming of channels online. The industry as a whole, Venugopal said, needs to be looking at whether or not these models are sustainable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Telcos redirecting their spending into infrastructure upgrades could impact how much they shell out for content deals across the Asia Pacific, Aravind Venugopal, VP of Media Partners Asia (MPA), told APOS delegates in Bali this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":4866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[1079,269],"class_list":["post-4865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-aravind-venugopal","tag-media-partners-asia"],"yoast_head":"\n