Tving led subscriber growth in the first half of 2024, although Netflix remains the streaming industry leader, according to an analyst’s report.
Overall, the Korean SVOD market added 705,000 net new subscribers in H1 to total 20.8 million by end-June, according to AMPD, the digital measurement platform owned and operated by Media Partners Asia (MPA).
Premium streaming revenues, including subscription and advertising, grew 11% year-on-year to $922 million and viewership grew 5% year-on-year to 103 billion minutes.
Tving led subscriber growth in H1, contributing 34% share of SVOD category net additions to 4.2 million total subscribers. Tving’s growth is anchored to popular tvN and JTBC network dramas, variety and originals.
The report found that the introduction of a new advertising tier on Tving helped to drive user growth in the first half of the year, with monthly active users totalling more than 11.5 million.
Netflix remains the premium VOD category leader with 43% share of revenue and 37% of viewership. However, Tving is gaining pace, growing its share of premium VOD viewership by six points year-on-year to reach 30%, capturing 15% of premium VOD revenues.
Premium VOD broadly relates to services that offer early access content tiers.
Beyond premium VOD, viewership across AVOD, SVOD and live streaming platforms on mobile devices totalled 534 billion minutes in 1H 2024, up 24% year-on-year. YouTube is the overall VOD category leader and continues to gain share, reaching 80% of total VOD viewership in H1 2024.
“Local content captured 77% of Premium VOD category engagement and 75% of customer acquisition in 1H 2024, with key drama and variety hits from Tving, Netflix, Coupang Play and Disney+,” said Dhivya T, Lead Analyst & Head of Insights at AMPD.
“An abundance of local drama and variety releases across major VOD platforms drive viewership, with over 200 titles contributing to 80% of Korean content demand in 1H 2024. Tving led hits across scripted and unscripted titles, carrying 10 of the top 15 titles [7 shared across platforms] in 1H 2024. Other key platforms include Netflix with 7 of the top 15 titles. Disney+ originals Coupang Play’s sports and originals also broke through. CJ ENM produced 6 of the top 15 titles in 1H 2024.”