A look at the $1.6B video streaming market in Japan, where Netflix and Amazon are using the power of original shows to take on Hulu and homegrown dTV
Since launching in Japan in 2015, Netflix has focused on providing high-quality and original content from both international and local sources.
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2018 market snapshot sits mid-arc in Netflix's Japan push: after announcing its fall 2015 launch and locking in SoftBank carrier billing with pre-installed apps for distribution, Netflix spent the following years building Japanese-language originals to attack incumbents Hulu and homegrown dTV in what was then a $1.6B market.
The strategy the article describes proved durable — Netflix Japan later reported passing 10M subscribers in H1 2024, having doubled its base in four years on the strength of Japanese-language programming. But the field also kept crowding around it, from the Disney-Docomo streaming joint venture to the broader challenges Netflix flagged across Asia.
First-order effects
- Hulu and dTV face direct competition from Netflix and Amazon originals budgets they cannot match head-on, forcing them to compete on local library depth and carrier relationships instead.
Second-order effects
- Carriers become kingmakers: SoftBank's distribution deal for Netflix set the template that Docomo followed by partnering with Disney rather than fighting alone, making mobile bundles the main customer-acquisition channel in Japanese streaming.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Japan's market consolidates around global platforms funding local-language originals plus carrier-bundled entrants, squeezing standalone domestic services — and the same originals-first playbook is now being turned back on Netflix elsewhere in Asia by iQiyi and Tencent in Southeast Asia.
The trend: Streaming markets worldwide are converging on a structure where global platforms win through locally produced originals distributed via carrier bundles, leaving unaligned domestic services squeezed.