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326 mn pay TV homes in Asia Pacific: Casbaa
MUMBAI: The Asia Pacific region now has 326 million pay-TV homes, up 26 million from the year-ago period.
According to Casbaa estimates, backed by global data, subscription television in Asia Pacific now reaches more homes than the rest of the world (ROW) combined. Digital pay-TV subscription households now account for over 115 million homes.
China and India have spearheaded much of the growth, accounting for 90 per cent of all Asian pay-TV subscribers in 2009.
India now has 19 million digital pay-TV households, while China represents 69 million digital video connections. Overall, Asian digital penetration stands at 35 per cent across 14 markets.
Casbaa CEO Simon Twiston Davies says, “These are very encouraging figures. Much of the digital promise of the last five years is now being delivered.”
Eighteen new pay-TV operators have emerged across the region in the past 18 months, Casbaa said today during its annual Convention in Hong Kong.
The list includes Reliance, Videocon and Bharti Reliance (India); Hikari TV (Japan); Korea Telecom and SK Telecom (Korea); Cignal (PLDT), G-Sat (Global Destiny), PLDT/Smart (MyTV) (Philippines); Aora-TV and Okevision (Indonesia); Top Up TV (Next Step Co.) (Thailand); VSTV (VTV/Canal Overseas), VTC (HD channels), HTV (Ho Chi Minh TV), FPT Telecom and VNPT (Vietnam National Posts & Telecom) (Vietnam); and Telecom Malaysia.
Meanwhile, Casbaa‘s annual pay-TV piracy survey of 15 Asia Pacific markets, conducted in association with Standard Chartered Bank, reflects the regional growth but also generating an updated estimate of $1.94 billion in annual revenue losses to the industry.
This estimate uses highly conservative assumptions. Actual totals are likely to be much higher. Last year‘s Casbaa piracy survey produced an estimate of $1.75 billion in annual pay-TV revenue leakage in Asia.
Evolving factors in the past 12 months include the strong growth in the legitimate pay-TV market which, inevitably, has meant more piracy; as new content is made available in more Asian languages, the stimulus to piracy increases.
“Pay-TV is becoming more attractive but that means more people want to steal,” adds Twiston Davies.
As new markets open, previously hidden pockets of piracy have become apparent as in Indonesia, for instance, where the local industry and government have paid increasing attention to pay-TV signal theft in the last year. Likewise, Vietnam is going through the same process.
In some places, piracy has declined as investment in digital technology make signals more difficult to steal. Thus, piracy numbers in Hong Kong and Manila have declined as cable operators have deployed new digital transmission systems.
Tax specialists at PricewaterhouseCoopers participated in the analytical exercise, and came to the conclusion that the revenue leakage from the legitimate pay-TV industry cost regional governments at least $247 million in uncollected taxes.
The biggest revenue losers were the governments in Thailand ($76 million), Pakistan ($56 million) and the Philippines ($39 million).
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
