As the Asian market grows and matures, global publishers are looking for price increases

Multinational publishing groups are using their growing market power to drive pricing and profitability in the Asia-Pacific region, where many local competitors command a significant revenue share but often lag behind global giants in terms of earnings.

That was one of the most striking messages to emerge from Wednesday’s opening speech, the first in the morning, by Vivek Couto, managing partner of consultancy firm Media Partners Asia. APOS Conference in Indonesia.

Global publishers are under pressure to make money, he said.Netflix “It started as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) business model but is now leaning more on partners for the next phase of its growth. Disney is moving in the opposite direction, increasingly focusing on its D2C product. Warner, together with MAX, will try to find a balance in different markets, such as its recent deal with U-Next in Japan,” Couto said. Max, the streaming platform that combines the content offerings of Warner, HBO and Discovery, is launching in Asia starting Wednesday.

“Price increases are becoming more common. It’s also happening across both SVOD and user-generated platforms (e.g. Netflix with ads, Prime Video, TV and Youtube “This is increasing ad load, stopping ad blockers, and raising YouTube Premium prices. This is due to platforms’ desire to move to annual plans,” he said.

Couto explained that Disney is in the second phase of its model, phasing out discounted partner pricing and offering a price closer to Netflix. “As the markets evolve, the offerings evolve with them.”

Couto showed in one slide that the big four entertainment-tech companies Amazon, Meta, Netflix and YouTube will generate an estimated $21.6 billion in video revenue in the Asia Pacific region this year. That’s slightly more than double the $9.6 billion in video revenue generated by Disney/Viacom18, CJ ENM, U-Next, PCCW, Foxtel, NC, Asto and Indonesia’s SCMA.

But in terms of their global profits (and therefore their ability to outshine locals), the big four generate a staggering $240 billion, compared to $1.5 billion for the same group of local market leaders, making them 150 times more powerful.

In another segment, Couto said technology is “re-sizing” the entertainment landscape. According to that analysis, Amazon is now the world’s leading entertainment company with estimated annual revenues of $583 billion by 2024, ahead of YouTube owner Google with an estimated revenue of $333 billion. Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, comes in third with a revenue estimate of $150 billion.

But Meta is not far ahead of China Baytance (It owns TikTok and Douyin.) And Bytedance generates $92 billion more than traditional entertainment giants Disney and $91 billion more than China’s Tencent. Netflix is ​​expected to generate $39 billion in revenue in the current year.