Digital video will be watched by more than 998.0 million people in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016, according to eMarketer's new estimates for the region. Not surprisingly, China makes up a huge portion of the total for the region, with more than half (530.4 million) of the total regional user base.

Although the absolute number of video viewers in China is large, the penetration level for the entire population is relatively low. Just 38.8% of the overall population watch digital video, eMarketer estimates, far lower than in Australia, Japan and South Korea. However, when it comes to internet users in China, almost three-quarters (73.4%) will watch digital videos this year.

Across the region, digital video use is most common in Australia, where more than three-quarters of internet users regularly watch digital video.

eMarketer estimates that Indonesia, South Korea and Japan will also report high penetration rates this year, with at least 64.0% of internet users in each of these countries watching digital video.

India has lowest level of digital video penetration of internet users in the region. However it is also reporting the highest level of growth.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Oscar Orozco said increasing use of smartphones, and more access to cheaper and faster data is driving rapid increases in video viewing across much of the region. “Another key contributing factor is that video has been embraced by the major social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, who have enabled video content to be easily watched on mobile devices,” he said.

Worldwide digital video will be watched by more than 1.98 billion consumers in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%.