Irdeto Survey Reveals Top Piracy Contributors

Singapore, June 18, 2014--New research results from Irdeto announced at BroadcastAsia 2014  explores consumer consumption patterns of video content confirmed top two reasons why people turn to piracy: lack of content availability and concerns over price. Two in three consumers in Australia, India and Singapore indicated that they are either ‘neutral’, ‘unlikely’ or ‘extremely unlikely’ to watch pirated video content, the survey also showed that concerns over security issues and poor quality pirated videos are major impediments to piracy.

Smartphones (62%) and Tablets (46%) are found to be the top two devices that consumers currently own or plan to purchase within the next year. The third most popular choice is Smart TVs (34%) – underlining a significant shift towards the growing use of smart devices and a rise of multi-screen viewing.

Released today at BroadcastAsia 2014, the survey was conducted among 1,600 nationally representative adults in Australia, India, Indonesia and Singapore, aged 18 and above in early May. It tackled important areas including consumers’ video viewing preferences as well as factors influencing their decision to watch pirated video content.

Unsurprisingly, most consumers enjoy consuming video content at home but majority do so on their laptops or desktop computers, smartphones or tablets (61% in India, 57% in Indonesia and 71% in Singapore) except for consumers in Australia who watch video content on TV (51%) as much as they do on other devices. These results are in line with those in a similar survey released by Irdeto in March this year on Chinese consumers’ viewing preferences.

Key Findings include:

  • On average, 29% of the respondents in Australia (40%), India (40%), Indonesia (9%) and Singapore (32%) indicated that they are ‘unlikely’ or ‘extremely unlikely’ to watch pirated video content while 27% of the respondents indicated that they are neutral.
  • Most consumers are driven to watching pirated video content due to lack of content availability (39% in Australia, 34% in India, 36% in Indonesia and 44% in Singapore) and pricing concerns (19% in Australia, 29% in India, 36% in Indonesia and 30% in Singapore).
  • Majority of the consumers across the markets surveyed either own or plan to purchase smart devices such as Smartphones (62%), Tablets (46%) and Smart TVs (34%) within the next year.
  • Majority of the consumers in Australia (60%) and Indonesia (52%) watch video content only at home, whereas majority of the consumers watch video content either at home or at another location in Singapore (51%) and India (51%).
  • When asked what would deter them from viewing pirated content, consumers in Australia (27%) cited protection of intellectual property (IP) as the main factor, whereas consumers in Indonesia (34%) and Singapore (32%) were most concerned with poor quality of pirated videos. In India, the top two factors were security issues (24%), followed by protection of IP (23%) and poor quality of pirated videos (23%).

“This survey is testament to Irdeto’s commitment in offering valuable insights into video consumption trends in Asia-Pacific.  By enabling content providers and operators the right insights, they can adapt to changing viewer behavioral patterns and preferences and be in a better position to provide products and services that are rich and fulfilling for their customers,” said Bengt Jonsson, Vice President, APAC, Irdeto. 

The full survey results can be found here.