Netflix/Everett Collection
China’s entertainment and media industry is expected to close the gap with the United States over the next four years, according to PWC’s latest World Outlook.
According to the report, advertising and consumer spending revenues in the world’s second-most populous country are expected to grow by more than 7% to $362.5 billion by 2028, nearly double the rate of growth in the United States, although the U.S. industry figure is expected to remain significantly higher at $808.4 billion.
“The United States will remain the world’s largest entertainment and media market by a wide margin, accounting for more than a third of global spending in 2023, for combined advertising and consumer spending,” PWC said, “but this size will come with maturity and therefore relatively slow growth.”
China’s entertainment industry has expanded in recent years, and PWC said, “While strict government regulations can make investment more complicated than elsewhere, continued strong growth means it is steadily closing the gap with the US in market size.”
The report predicts that Indonesia and India will be the fastest growing markets between this year and 2028, predicting “rapid growth” in these regions over the next few years.
PWC emphasized that each of these countries has its own market dynamics, noting that India serves a “vast, diverse and widely dispersed population that is passionate about sports content in general, and cricket in particular,” making it the fastest-growing OTT video streaming market in the world during this period.
By 2028, India’s industry is expected to grow by more than 8 percent and be worth just under $100 billion, with Indonesia lagging slightly behind, according to the report.
The report focuses on advertising revenue trends in the streaming era and predicts that global advertising revenue will exceed $1 trillion within two years.
PWC predicted that by 2028, these revenues will double from 2020 figures. The company noted that a “stagnation effect” has “forced streaming giants like Netflix, Disney and Prime Video to restructure their business models and find new revenue streams,” including crackdowns on advertising and password sharing.
“The three major Western players in the streaming space – Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video – have all launched advertising-supported ‘hybrid tier’ services, in which consumers pay a lower subscription fee in exchange for watching ads,” the report said. “Many smaller or regional players are following suit as their markets expand around the world.”
According to the report, global entertainment and media industry revenue is predicted to reach a total of $3.4 trillion by 2028.
