MUMBAI: The video content expenditure for TV, movie and online video across India, Korea and Southeast Asia’s five biggest growth markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) has seen a growth of eight per cent in 2017 to reach $10.2 billion, according to the 2018 edition of Asia Video Content Dynamics from analyst firm Media Partners Asia (MPA).

India’s video content budget soared by 14 per cent to $4.2 billion in 2017, purely driven by pay-TV. Content investment in India’s online video market is also growing rapidly, driven by competition among well-capitalised global and local platforms. This trend is expected to continue over the next three years.

India is followed by Korea, where investment in video content increased by seven per cent over the year to approach $3 billion. The investment in Korea is also starting to accelerate and will continue to do so over the course of 2018-19. Growth here will likely accelerate when China eventually lifts its ban on Korean dramas, movies and talent.

The biggest contributors to aggregate incremental growth in video content spend across the seven markets in 2017 were pay-TV (38 per cent) and online video (30 per cent).

MPA VP Stephen Laslocky said, “In general, content investment dynamics are favourable with content investment growing. Pay-TV content costs in the surveyed markets grew five per cent, led by India and Korea, driven by local entertainment and sports.”

Free to air content investment was up by six per cent in 2017. Scale and growth in free to air content investment are largely attributable to Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, driven by local entertainment.

Film production budgets in the surveyed markets were up 10 per cent, driven by Korea and India. Online video investment is growing rapidly from a low base, up almost 80 per cent during 2017.

Laslocky believes that rising competitive intensity is driving up online video content costs as rival platforms produce and acquire local series and movies, especially in India and Korea. “We expect online video content investment to also pick up in emerging markets across Southeast Asia, led by Indonesia and the Philippines,” he added.

Malaysian market witnessed a decline in video content investment in 2017 mainly due to Astro cutting spend on international pay channels. The outlook for Malaysia could improve as new government policies bolster economic growth, broadening consumer spend and ad dollars.

Growth in production spend across emerging Southeast Asia markets was generally satisfactory in 2017, according to the report.