ASIA-PACIFIC: Almost 1bn people in Asia-Pacific are watching digital video, a figure that is set to increase by a third over the next four years according to eMarketer.
New estimates from the research firm suggest that 998m people in the region have viewed digital video this year, with China alone accounting for more than half that total (530.4m).
By 2020, around 1.34bn will be watching, which translates to 59.4% of all internet users. The proportion of internet users continues to edge upwards: from 56.8% in 2016, eMarketer anticipates a lift of 1.6 percentage points in 2017 to 58.4% before slowing to half a percentage point or less in subsequent years.
China remains the market with the greatest growth potential. Even though it already has the largest number of video viewers and the penetration of digital video viewing among internet users is high at 73.4%, just 38.8% of the overall population watch digital video.
That, said eMarketer, is far lower than in Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Digital video use is most common in Australia, where more than three-quarters of internet users regularly watch digital video.
And eMarketer estimates that in Indonesia, South Korea and Japan at least 64.0% of internet users will watch digital video in 2016.
India, meanwhile, has both the lowest level of digital video penetration of internet users and the highest level of growth.
Oscar Orozco, eMarketer forecasting analyst, noted that increased use of smartphones, and more access to cheaper and faster data was driving rapid increases in video viewing across much of the region.
"Another key contributing factor is that video has been embraced by the major social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, who have enabled video content to be easily watched on mobile devices," he added.
New estimates from the research firm suggest that 998m people in the region have viewed digital video this year, with China alone accounting for more than half that total (530.4m).
By 2020, around 1.34bn will be watching, which translates to 59.4% of all internet users. The proportion of internet users continues to edge upwards: from 56.8% in 2016, eMarketer anticipates a lift of 1.6 percentage points in 2017 to 58.4% before slowing to half a percentage point or less in subsequent years.
China remains the market with the greatest growth potential. Even though it already has the largest number of video viewers and the penetration of digital video viewing among internet users is high at 73.4%, just 38.8% of the overall population watch digital video.
That, said eMarketer, is far lower than in Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Digital video use is most common in Australia, where more than three-quarters of internet users regularly watch digital video.
And eMarketer estimates that in Indonesia, South Korea and Japan at least 64.0% of internet users will watch digital video in 2016.
India, meanwhile, has both the lowest level of digital video penetration of internet users and the highest level of growth.
Oscar Orozco, eMarketer forecasting analyst, noted that increased use of smartphones, and more access to cheaper and faster data was driving rapid increases in video viewing across much of the region.
"Another key contributing factor is that video has been embraced by the major social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, who have enabled video content to be easily watched on mobile devices," he added.
Data sourced from eMarketer; additional content by Warc staff
