Netflix’s Q4 2022 results, announced in January 2023, indicate the global streamer now has 38m paying subscribers in Asia Pacific, adding 5.4m subscriptions in 2022, the largest growth among all regions. Indeed, with Netflix hitting saturation in the US and many Western European markets, APAC has effectively been Netflix’s largest growth base for two years. Moreover, APAC is likely to represent Netflix’s biggest growth potential in the future, accounting for over 60% of net additions to its global subscriber base over the next five years.  

Compared to the US, where Netflix saw subscription decline for the first two quarters in 2022 and is forecast to further lose subscribers, and to Western Europe where growth opportunities are limited, Netflix is growing in all APAC markets, largely as a result of its localisation efforts. As well as building distribution partnerships to make access and payment easier, Netflix has also strongly increased its local content offer and become competitive in producing Asian content. As of November 2022, Netflix offered 11,631 titles (8,221 movies and 3,410 TV shows) across all APAC markets, with nearly half of the titles produced from the APAC region, including 321 Netflix’s own APAC Originals.

As a result, APAC will continue to be the main driver of Netflix’s overall global subscription growth:  Ampere estimates Netflix will add over 20m subscriptions overall by 2027, with over 60% of these (around 12m) found in APAC.