Can more Southeast Asian content help Netflix ward off strong local rivals? - This Week In Asia

Netflix has also benefited from its US streaming rivals back-pedalling from Southeast Asia. Disney+, which raised subscription prices in the region last year, is no longer focused on original content creation. Neither is Amazon’s Prime Video due to shareholders’ demand of profitability over subscriber growth.

At an event in Jakarta earlier this month, Netflix highlighted its new and coming series and feature films from regional creators, which include acclaimed Indonesian director Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams, the country’s first sci-fi series.

“We want to make sure that we bring locally authentic stories to our members in each of these countries. That’s why we have our teams on the ground, communicating with local creators on a day-to-day basis,” Minyoung Kim, vice-president of content at Netflix in Asia-Pacific except India, said at the June 13 event.

Joko’s series, which premiered on June 14, went on to become the platform’s fourth most watched non-English language programme globally, gaining 2.1 million views as of Thursday.

The show has also earned praise from Indonesian viewers, who often favour Korean dramas, Chinese series, or Japanese anime over locally produced content.

“It’s not often for me to binge-watch Indonesian series, let alone a sci-fi one. Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams is an exquisite, mind-blowing masterpiece,” user Ola wrote on X.

Hikmat Darmawan, an Indonesian film industry observer and producer at Jakarta-based production house Imaginarium Pictures, said “it’s only natural” that Nightmares and Daydreams was popular with Indonesian audiences due to its high production values.

“Netflix’s content has the latest production standards. This has an impact because there is a transfer of technology and a transfer of knowledge to Indonesian filmmakers.

“Joko Anwar is also a proven brand, it’s natural that his TV show is popular,” he said.

Still from the Indonesian zombie film ‘Abadi Nan Jaya’ (WT). Photo: Netflix

Beating K-dramas?

Netflix entered Southeast Asia in 2016 and remains committed to commissioning content in the region, including Indonesia, amid a push in Hollywood to find new growth markets in Asia, according to Hikmat.

“There have also been many strikes in Hollywood from the workforce there, especially writers and actors. A lot of production was hampered, and when production is forced, the results are bad. Market saturation can be seen in Marvel products,” he noted.

Marvel Studios’ 2023 release of The Marvels was its worst-performing film to date, with a box-office run of only US$205 million worldwide. Deadpool & Wolverine is the only Marvel film slated for this year.

Southeast Asian producers are also competing for eyeballs with Korean and Chinese content, which still rules streaming platforms in the region.

According to MPA’s report, K-dramas were the most popular content among Asian viewers on streaming platforms between January 2023 to March this year, with over 40 per cent of engagement, followed by Japanese anime at 18 per cent and Chinese dramas at 9 per cent. Indonesian and Thai-produced content each earned 3 per cent engagement.

Getting as much Korean content as possible has been the playbook for local and regional streamers such as Hong Kong’s Viu and Jakarta-based Vidio, which also focuses on sports and dramas, according to Hikmat.

Still from the Filipino zombie film ‘Outside’. Photo: Netflix

“Viu and Vidio are focused on the K-pop fan market. When dealing with Indonesian production houses, they would say, ‘your content is not Korean enough’. Netflix doesn’t operate like that,” he said.

“Netflix is willing to pay for high-quality local productions, but it’s very selective. So, on one hand, Netflix has boosted the value of our movie industry, but it’s only enjoyed by a handful of elite [filmmakers]. Netflix does not want to take risks with new directors.”

That playbook seems to be working. In Southeast Asia, Netflix leads the region across subscribers and monetisation, accounting for 49 per cent of the streaming sector’s total subscription revenue, according to the MPA report.

The platform also surpassed 10 million subscribers at the end of the first quarter of this year, pulling ahead of local and regional competitors such as Viu, Disney+ Hotstar, Vidio, WeTV and Amazon Prime Video, the report added.

Dhivya noted that Vidio leads over Netflix in terms of subscribers in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, with a market share of 20 per cent, 9 per cent bigger than Netflix’s.

“However, those subscriptions have very different average revenue per user, of US$5 to US$6 for Netflix and US$2.50 for Vidio,” she said, adding that viewers also spent more hours on Netflix compared with Vidio and Viu.

According to MPA’s report, paid subscriptions to premium video-on-demand services in Southeast Asia reached 48.5 million in the first quarter of this year, up from 47.9 million last year, collecting an estimated revenue of US$381 million.

Still from the Indonesian sci-fi series ‘Joko Anwar’s Nightmares and Daydreams’. Photo: Netflix

Romance and horror

In Southeast Asia, a line-up ranging from Thai dramas to romance and comedy titles and Indonesian horror films is expected to boost viewership, as such content has “the strongest regional impact”, according to Dhivya.

Among the Indonesia-produced Netflix original content scheduled to premier later this year is a horror film depicting a dysfunctional family trapped in a zombie outbreak, tentatively called Abadi Non Jaya, as well as Borderless Fog, about a detective trying to solve serial murder cases along the Indonesia-Malaysia border.

From Thailand, an eight-part show about a sex columnist called Doctor Climax premiered on June 13, while Tomorrow and I, an anthology series exploring the intersection of futuristic technologies and Thai culture, is slated to air in the near future.

Unhinged zombies will also figure into the plot of Filipino-made film Outside, which will premiere on October 11.

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