Disney Promises To Become 'Major Player' In Asia-Pacific Entertainment Markets

Walt Disney Co. DIS is vowing to ratchet up its presence in Asian entertainment markets with new original productions and an expansion of its streaming presence in new markets.

What Happened: Disney’s Asia-Pacific President Luke Kang stated the company is planning a significant strategy to establish itself further in the region’s markets, according to Variety coverage of the virtual APOS 2021 media and entertainment industry conference.

“We are not going to dabble – we are going to be a major player,” said Kang. “We always knew that local content would be really important. We will figure out [the volume] going forward.”

Although Kang didn't preview specific projects, he acknowledged that a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn't work.

“We are learning that we need to be very broad,” he continued. “We will be doing a lot of local and regional content across multiple markets, to make our service better, more exciting, more localized.”

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What Happens Next: Disney is broadening its exposure across the Asia-Pacific region, with a soft launch of Disney+ in Japan last year that's being upgraded to Star-branded content in October and debuts of the Disney+ streaming service in Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan in November.

“SVOD is the ultimate scalable business, and scale really matters,” said Kang. “Previously there were all kinds of walled gardens. SVOD allows you to build a global platform.”
Photo: Nagi Usano / Flickr Creative Commons.