A case study of Netflix’s global hit “Kpop Demon Hunters” anchored Luminate’s latest APAC and global music insights session at Singapore’s All That Matters conference, where the entertainment-data company unpacked how transmedia hits ripple across music, film and TV.
Scott Ryan, executive VP, commercial at Luminate, opened the presentation with toplines for the first half of 2025: global on-demand audio streams rose just over 10% to 2.5 trillion, with expansion driven largely by markets outside the U.S.
Most Asia Pacific countries, from India to Indonesia, delivered above-average double-digit growth in the first half of 2025, while Australia and New Zealand tracked closer to mature-market levels. Premium subscription activity continued to lag the global average but posted strong gains in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. Japan alone now accounts for nearly a third of premium streams in the region.
India remains heavily ad-supported, with 85% of streams in that category, suggesting untapped growth potential for paid subscriptions. “Asia Pacific’s premium streams grew overall by 15% plus,” Ryan said, highlighting South Korea and Japan as leaders.
On export power, South Korea, Australia and Japan remained among the top 10 countries globally, while Thailand jumped three places year-on-year, aided by the cultural halo from “The White Lotus” season three, which boosted listening for Thai talent including Blackpink’s Lisa and Carabao.
Ryan also flagged continued activity around music-rights valuation. Verified market streaming remains a core signal for financing mechanisms ranging from catalog acquisitions and private credit to asset-backed structures – broadening access to funding for independents, not just superstar catalogs.
The “Kpop Demon Hunters” case study underpinned the session’s transmedia theme. More than two-thirds of the soundtrack’s on-demand audio streams come from outside the U.S., with Asia Pacific and North America making up the majority. Netflix has dubbed the series in multiple languages, including Korean, Japanese, Mandarin and Tagalog, extending its reach across regions.
New Spanish and French versions of breakout track “Golden” have each cleared 5 million global streams since release, and the show’s audience skews markedly younger and more female than typical anime – evidence of crossover pull between K-pop and animation.
Luminate’s takeaways: audiences worldwide continue to embrace new content across platforms; APAC’s premium adoption and export capacity are climbing; financing options tied to streaming performance are widening; and cross-promotion across TV, film and music – centered here on “Kpop Demon Hunters” – is unlocking fresh demographics and discovery paths.
