Highlights
- New Ampere Analysis shows anime is APAC’s most powerful yet underleveraged streaming growth driver, despite the region hosting the world’s largest anime audience.
- Global platforms like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Prime Video dominate anime supply in APAC, contributing over half the anime catalog in most Southeast Asian markets.
- With the anime streaming market projected to reach $20.91B by 2034, data analysis shows regional OTTs are losing strategic revenue opportunities in APAC.
Anime has become the most underused growth engine for streaming platforms across Asia-Pacific (APAC), according to new data presented by Ampere Analysis at the Asia TV Forum and Market in Singapore. The findings, shared by senior analyst Moto Ara, reveal a widening gap between APAC audiences' consumption and regional platforms’ supply chain.
As per the report, the APAC region hosts the largest anime audience, yet local streamers significantly under-value anime titles in their catalogs. The mismatch is striking, despite anime outperforming most genres in cross-border appeal, several domestic platforms still treat the category as peripheral rather than core to their growth strategy.
Along with the global demand for anime, the anime-streaming market is also growing rapidly. Emergen Research estimates the anime-streaming services market was valued at $6.58B in 2024 and is growing at a CAGR of 12.2%, with a projection to reach $20.91B by 2034. That projection underscores streaming’s central role in anime monetization.
With such a growth potential, regional Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) platforms shortfalls in APAC represent a strategic revenue loss, whereas the Japanese anime content has observed an 80% increase in global SVoD platforms’ content library. It is to note that Ampere's data exclude Japan's anime market.
Anime’s Influence on APAC Subscriber Growth
Anime is now one of the most efficient subscription drivers in APAC, with strong performance in India, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The growth comes from a mix of newer and older titles, across genres.
In South Korea, newer titles such as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Suzume, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba, and older titles such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Ghibli movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, were the most demanded anime content in 2025.
Genre data from Ampere shows that action-fantasy, sci-fi, and shonen titles are the highest-demand categories, especially in Southeast Asia. A more detailed analysis shows sci-fi and fantasy shows are dominating the chart, accounting for 33% of the content library.
The viewing data analysis shows that the viewers mostly come from the younger generation, with an average of 4.2 hours spent on streaming platforms. The vast seasonal catalog on platforms like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Prime Video is driving the subscriber growth. They supply 80% of anime in Thailand, 74% in India, 61% in Singapore, 52% in Indonesia, 88% in Malaysia, and 94% in the Philippines.
Why Anime Remains Underleveraged by Local Platforms
Despite anime’s rising economic value, Ampere notes that local streaming platforms continue to lag in acquisition, licensing, and commissioning. The reasons range from limited budgets compared with global players to difficulty in securing rights from Japanese licensors and a lack of internal anime curation expertise.
Meanwhile, global streamers have aggressively expanded their regional anime offerings with subtitles and dubs, securing multi-year licensing deals and commissioning local co-productions. This imbalance positions domestic OTTs at a disadvantage, particularly in markets where anime consumption is accelerating but catalog availability has not kept pace.
The report notes that, among the APAC countries, only South Korea and Taiwan have significant local catalogues for anime, whereas the other countries lag. With APAC projecting the subscription streaming market to grow at a 16.8% CAGR, it's high time for local distributors to change their distribution strategy in their respective streaming ecosystems.
The APAC entertainment markets are pushing to increase anime investment, which coincides with the Ampere findings. Several sessions at JAFF Market 2025 focused on productions, international funding, and Southeast Asia's potential as a developing center for regional anime IPs. In India, studios such as Green Gold and Reliance Animation are taking new initiatives to build regional anime projects.
