Tving Gains From Netflix In Korea’s Premium Streaming Sector

Tving led the growth of subscribers in the first half of 2024, although Netflix remains the leader of the streaming industry, according to the analyst report.

Overall, the Korean SVOD market added 705,000 new subscribers in H1 to total 20.8 million at the end of June, according to AMPD, a digital rating platform owned and operated by Media Partners Asia (MPA).

Live streaming revenues, including subscriptions and advertising, grew 11% year-over-year to $922 million and viewership grew 5% year-over-year to 103 billion minutes.

Tving led subscriber growth in H1, contributing a 34% share of the SVOD segment’s total additions to 4.2 million subscribers. Tving’s growth is based on tvN and JTBC’s popular network dramas, both variety and original.

The report found that the introduction of a new advertising category on Tving helped boost user growth in the first half of the year, with monthly active users reaching more than 11.5 million.

Netflix remains the leader of the premium VOD category with a 43% share of revenues and 37% of viewers. However, Tving is growing, increasing its share of premium VOD viewing by six percentage points year over year to reach 30%, capturing 15% of premium VOD revenue.

Premium VOD is broadly related to services that offer categories of early access content.

Beyond premium VOD, viewership across AVOD, SVOD and live streaming platforms on mobile devices reached 534 billion minutes in 1H 2024, up 24% year-over-year. YouTube is the overall VOD category leader and continues to gain share, reaching 80% of total VOD viewership by H1 2024.

“Local content captured 77% of the Premium VOD segment and 75% of customer acquisition in 1H 2024, with significant drama and variety hits from Tving, Netflix, Coupang Play and Disney+,” said Dhivya T, Analyst Lead and Chief of Information at AMPD. .

“A large number of local drama and variety releases across major VOD platforms are driving viewership, with more than 200 titles contributing to 80% of Korean content demand in 1H 2024. Tving took the lead in scripted and unscripted titles, with 10 titles of the top 15. [7 shared across platforms] in 1H 2024. Other key platforms include Netflix with 7 of the top 15 titles. Sports and Disney+ reality series Coupang Play also broke ground. CJ ENM produced 6 of the top 15 titles in 1H 2024.”