top of page
IMG_5940.jpg

ASEAN-KOREA

Cultural & Creative Sectors Research

Southeast Asia's Creative Industries: 6 Trends Reshaping Film, Animation, Gaming and Streaming in 2025–2026

  • 23 hours ago
  • 7 min read

Southeast Asia's creative industries are no longer a promising side story to Hollywood, Netflix and the big Asian content exporters — they are becoming a story of their own. Across film, animation, gaming and streaming, ASEAN's content sector is entering a phase where local titles top the box office, regional studios build globally recognised intellectual property, and a young, mobile-first audience of nearly 700 million people is reshaping how content is made and monetised.

1. Local content is winning: Southeast Asia's box-office "golden era"

The single biggest shift is that home-grown films are now outperforming imported blockbusters in the region's largest markets. In Thailand, local productions earned more than foreign imports for the first time in 2024, capturing roughly 54% of total box-office grosses — an all-time high, driven heavily by the country's globally exported horror genre. Momentum cooled from that record year in 2025, but local titles have kept their lead, and the government has since launched a dedicated film fund to sustain the sector. In Indonesia, crossing the ten-million-ticket mark has become the new benchmark for a hit, with domestic titles regularly outpacing Hollywood franchises.

Crucially, this is happening at the premium end too: Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand all posted record IMAX results in 2025, showing that audiences increasingly want to see their own stories on the biggest screen available.

The takeaway for the industry: ASEAN audiences are not simply consuming global content — they are actively choosing local narratives, and they are willing to pay premium prices to do so.



2. From views to value: the rise of "IP-first" thinking

Behind the box-office numbers is a deeper strategic shift — from chasing one-off hits (flow) to building durable, ownable intellectual property (stock).

The clearest signal came from Indonesia's animation breakout Jumbo. Produced by Visinema Studios over five years by a team of more than 420 Indonesian artists, the film became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated feature of all time, earning over US$24.7 million (Rp402 billion) domestically and screening in more than 40 countries. More impressively, with over 10 million admissions it unseated KKN di Desa Penari to become the highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time — second only to Avengers: Endgame in the country. But the more telling story was the message its studio took to industry markets: stop making disposable one-off projects, and start building "evergreen" IP that can sustain a creative ecosystem over decades.

The same pivot is visible in gaming. Vietnamese studios are moving away from ad-funded, hyper-casual titles toward IP-driven, in-app-purchase business models — a transition observers compare directly to the path South Korea took a generation ago, turning a volume advantage into a durable value business.

For creators, financiers and policymakers alike, the emerging question is no longer "how do we get a hit?" but "how do we own and grow the IP behind it?"



3. Vietnam quietly becomes the world's #1 mobile game exporter

Southeast Asia's gaming market is one of the fastest-growing in the world, valued at over US$7 billion in 2025 and dominated by mobile, which accounts for roughly 70–73% of all gaming activity in the region.

The standout national story is Vietnam. Vietnamese studios shipped around 6.7 billion mobile game downloads globally in 2024 — the most of any country, surpassing even China — making Vietnam the world's largest mobile game exporter. The country now accounts for close to 11% of global downloads in the simulation, puzzle and arcade categories, and its game export revenue is climbing sharply, projected to jump more than 36% year-on-year in 2025.


Interestingly, this massive export boom contrasts sharply with an increasingly regulated domestic market. A new national licensing framework (Decree 147, effective late 2024) mandates strict user identity verification and requires platforms to remove illegal content within 24 hours. While stringent, observers note this regulatory maturity is sending a strong signal to foreign investors that Vietnam's digital economy is rapidly institutionalising rather than remaining a "wild west" for developers.

Elsewhere, Indonesia remains the region's biggest domestic gaming market by player count, while Singapore punches well above its weight as a development and esports hub.


4. A multi-platform streaming market with no single winner

Unlike Western markets where one platform tends to dominate, Southeast Asia's streaming landscape is genuinely fragmented — and that shapes everything about how content is distributed here.

Netflix is growing fast in the region: viewership of Southeast Asian content on the platform rose nearly 50% between 2023 and 2024, and more than 100 Southeast Asian titles have appeared in its Global Top 10. Yet Netflix does not dominate the way it does elsewhere. In Thailand, for example, Netflix holds around 26% of streaming hours — closely followed by local platform TrueID at 22% and China's WeTV at 17%.

Content investment reflects the shift: across seven major Asian markets, spending reached US$16.1 billion in 2024, with streaming platforms overtaking traditional pay-TV for the first time.

For content owners, the practical implication is clear: a Southeast Asia distribution strategy cannot rely on a single global platform. Regional and Chinese streamers hold meaningful share in most markets, and local-language content travels across borders within the bloc.


5. The AI reckoning — automation, backlash, and the authenticity premium

Generative AI is reshaping creative production across the region, but 2025–2026 also brought a visible correction.

On one side, AI tools are accelerating scripting, storyboarding, VFX, localisation and marketing content, and the region's technology providers are actively promoting AI as a complement to human creativity. On the other side, a backlash is building against low-quality, mass-produced "AI slop." Industry data shows that 82% of Southeast Asian consumers now prefer brands that engage them emotionally, and 74% of marketers plan to increase investment in human, creator-made storytelling.

The stakes for creative workers are significant. More than half of ASEAN's labour force — an estimated 164 million workers — is expected to experience some form of generative-AI disruption. UNESCO has warned that AI could reduce creator earnings by around 24% for music and 21% for audiovisual work by 2028, even as unresolved questions over training data and copyright remain the subject of major global lawsuits.

The emerging theme is an "authenticity premium": as synthetic content floods every channel, verifiably human, culturally specific storytelling becomes more valuable, not less.


  1. The Rise of T-Pop and P-Pop: Building Homegrown Music IP

While film, gaming, and streaming dominate headlines, Southeast Asia’s music sector is undergoing its own transformation driven by the rapid rise of T-Pop (Thailand) and P-Pop (Philippines). Moving beyond mere consumption of international hits, local agencies are increasingly adopting the rigorous idol-training and production models pioneered by K-Pop, but infusing them with distinct local languages and cultural narratives. Acts like the Philippines' SB19 and BINI, alongside Thailand's 4EVE and PROXIE, are proving that the region can manufacture highly exportable, music-driven IP with fiercely loyal, cross-border fanbases. For the wider creative economy, this signals a crucial shift: Southeast Asia is no longer just a lucrative tour stop for global artists, but a formidable pop-music incubator in its own right.


  1. Regional co-production is booming — and Korea is deeply embedded

Southeast Asian content is increasingly built through cross-border collaboration rather than in national silos. Recent examples include Malaysian-Indonesian co-productions premiering at major international festivals, and a growing pipeline of pan-regional projects showcased at markets like Busan (BIFF) and Yogyakarta (JAFF).

Korean players are especially embedded in the region's value chain. CJ ENM productions have ranked among the top ten box-office hits in Vietnam for three consecutive years, and Korean studios continue to co-produce and remake content across Thailand, Indonesia and beyond.

Notably, this regional rise coincides with pressure in more established markets. South Korea's total box office fell 12.4% in 2025 to KRW 1.047 trillion, with admissions down 13.8% and revenue from Korean films dropping especially steeply. The decline was sharpest in the first half — when takings ran roughly a third below the prior year — before a government-subsidised ticket campaign lifted the second half. Talent and investment continue to migrate toward streaming and television. As mature markets consolidate, Southeast Asia is emerging as one of the most dynamic growth engines in Asian content.



What it means for the creative economy

Put together, these seven trends point to a region shifting from a consumption market to a production powerhouse. The building blocks are falling into place — a huge young audience, rising local demand, growing IP ambition, and increasing regional collaboration. The open challenges are equally clear: sustained financing (production-cost support varies widely between countries), consistent distribution pipelines, workforce reskilling for an AI-augmented industry, and clearer frameworks for IP and content authenticity.

For anyone building in ASEAN's creative economy — studios, investors, platforms, and public agencies — 2025–2026 is the moment the region stops being described in terms of its potential, and starts being measured by its output.

Frequently asked questions

Which Southeast Asian countries have the strongest content industries? Indonesia leads on box-office scale and is the region's largest gaming market by players; Thailand is a powerhouse for horror and supernatural content and reached a milestone in 2024 when local films out-earned imports; Vietnam is the world's top mobile game exporter; and Singapore serves as a key development, esports and financing hub.

What is the biggest Southeast Asian animated film? Indonesia's Jumbo (2025), produced by Visinema Studios, became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated feature of all time. With over 10 million admissions and more than US$24.7 million (Rp402 billion) at the domestic box office, it also became the highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time — second only to Avengers: Endgame in the country — and screened in more than 40 countries.

Is streaming replacing cinema in Southeast Asia? Not straightforwardly. In ASEAN, cinema and streaming have largely grown together rather than cannibalising each other — audiences watch local content across both, and no single streaming platform dominates the way Netflix does in Western markets.

How is AI affecting Southeast Asia's creative industries? AI is accelerating production while also triggering a backlash against low-quality "AI slop." Over 160 million ASEAN workers are expected to face generative-AI disruption, and there is a growing "authenticity premium" on human, culturally specific storytelling.

Sources

Further Watching



bottom of page