Akamai Study Evaluates OTT Consumption Trends across APAC

Akamai Technologies, the cloud delivery platform, unveiled a study highlighting OTT (Over-the-top) video content consumption trends across six countries. The study, commissioned through research firm Kadence International, represents patterns of close to 850mn internet users.

Titled ‘OTT Media Consumption’, the study polled participants across Australia, Indonesia, India, Japan, Philippines, and Thailand showcasing audience preferences and habits with:

• Hours spent online
• Devices used to watch content
• Preferred OTT platforms
• Certain qualities which OTT platforms should have to sustain interest
• Preferred content genres

In India, viewers watched 12.3 hours of online content in a week, while in Japan, viewers watched the least content online per week at 6.2 hours. Indian (44 percent) and Thai (45 percent) audiences showed similar behaviors of watching online content via smartphone, while 50 percent of Japanese viewers preferred accessing OTT services via non-mobile devices. The survey brought the importance of superior quality video to the fore. 70 percent of Indian viewers said that the video and audio quality is of utmost importance to them, followed by fast start-up time (56%).

Country-specific highlights for the surveyed countries include:

• Users in Australia watch online content across three sites on average
• 73 percent of users in Indonesia are unlikely to pay for subscription-based content
• Users in India spend 12.3 hours per week watching online content
• 70 percent of the content that users in Japan watch is local
• 58 percent of users in the Philippines watch content provided by local players like iWantTV
• 45 percent of users in Thailand access online content via a smartphone

Some of the key trends that emerged from the survey include:

• An increased demand for local OTT players across markets (Hotstar in India, Hooq in Indonesia and Niconico in Japan, amongst others)
• The opportunity for a hybrid model that is either ad-supported or subscription-based for OTT, which could enable operators to reach a range of customers, from those only willing to pay on a pay-per-view basis to those who want unlimited access to all content by purchasing a subscription.

Vincent Low, Chief Media Strategist & Head of Media Product Marketing APJ at Akamai Technologies said, “It’s critical for OTT service providers across the region to understand user preferences as viewers increasingly shift to a culture of consuming content on any device, any time, and anywhere. What now becomes the differentiator are those micro-moments when they access their preferred content that could either be instances of delight for the user from good overall quality of experience or frustration, which can potentially lead to churn.”