In 2025, the market for streaming services in Southeast Asia grew 19 percent, tallying more than 60 million paid subscribers by the end of the year. Given this is less than 10 percent of the region’s estimated population, it’s probably safe to assume there is room for growth. Big global streamers as well as home-grown brands have been fiercely competing for viewers, and the strategies and content they are experimenting with have traced a fascinating arc across the region’s media ecosystem over the last decade.

Netflix was the first big foreign streamer to enter the region in 2016, part of a larger effort to break into global markets. Despite their first-mover advantage, it wasn’t easy. Consumer preferences can be very location-specific, so original and licensed content that worked for American audiences needed to be adjusted for local tastes.

Moreover, the streaming giant ran headlong into some political roadblocks. For a long time, Netflix was blocked on wireless and broadband networks controlled by Indonesia’s state-owned telecom giant Telkom. Telkom has the largest market share in Indonesia, so Netflix was essentially being frozen out of the biggest potential subscriber base in Southeast Asia.

The ban was lifted in 2020 and Netflix soon after started carrying a lot of locally produced content and doing development deals with big-name Indonesian directors and producers. By 2025, Netflix had more than 12 million subscribers across Southeast Asia’s major markets but was starting to face stiff competition.

Disney launched its own streaming service in Southeast Asia in 2020, which had about 2.6 million subscribers by the end of 2024. HBO also launched a regional streaming service in 2020, but response has been more tepid. After undergoing a rebranding, HBO Max trailed its main rivals with an estimated 1.4 million subscribers in 2024.

Among big American brands, Netflix is clearly leading despite generally being the most expensive. In addition to getting in first, Netflix has invested in local production and often carries content that local consumers want, such as South Korean television shows. Indeed, when it comes to consumer choice in Southeast Asia, one should never underestimate the power of the South Korean pop culture juggernaut.

Viu, a Hong Kong-based streaming service that specializes in South Korean content along with some original productions, had an estimated 10 million subscribers in Southeast Asia last year, more than HBO and Disney combined. While simply licensing South Korean content can be a winning strategy, demand for locally produced shows and films attuned to the tastes of Southeast Asian consumers remains strong. Home-grown streaming services have faced steep learning curves, however.

Iflix was a Malaysian streaming service launched in 2015. One of the first and more ambitious locally developed streaming platforms, Iflix planned from the beginning to focus on local content. Singapore followed in 2016 with Hooq, another home-grown streamer backed by telecom giant Singtel. Hooq went bankrupt in in 2020, the same year iFlix was acquired by China’s Tencent and folded into its WeTV brand.

Other home-grown streamers have fared better over the long run. The most notable is Indonesia’s Vidio, backed by media conglomerate Emtek. Vidio was launched in 2014, and for several years competed directly for domestic market share with local rival Mola. Mola was developed by a subsidiary of the Djarum Group, another massive Indonesian conglomerate.

Vidio obtained the rights for popular sports brands like the Premier League, and has invested heavily in developing original content. The parent company, Emtek, operates some of Indonesia’s largest free to air television stations as well as media production companies, giving it extensive experience in the media landscape. Vidio also had a far superior user interface.

Overwhelmed by these competitive advantages, Mola was finally rolled up and dissolved at the end of 2025 leaving Vidio to reign supreme over Indonesia’s streaming landscape. The streamer now dominates most online sports broadcasts in the country, produces dozens of original shows, and is expanding outside of Indonesia. They reportedly have around 5 million subscribers in the region, more than Disney and HBO, but still trailing Netflix and Viu.

Southeast Asia is a promising market for streaming services because steady economic growth is expected across most of the region. With mature markets like North America already over-saturated with streaming services, Southeast Asia offers that rarest of things: a growing market with a lot of untapped potential, and one where disposable income is likely to rise in the years ahead. While licensed foreign content and sports are of course important, the ability to really understand what consumers in the region want and create high-quality local content will provide an increasingly valuable edge in Southeast Asia’s streaming wars.