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The global anime market is booming and, according to the market research company Bernstein, is even more than quadrupled in the next few years-much to the delight of the two streaming services Netflix and Crunchyroll, who practically monopolize or rather duopolize the popular medium. We summarize.
Anime market is booming
According to an estimate by Bernstein, the international anime streaming market could reach a volume of around 14.5 billion euros by 2030-approximately four times the value of 2023, which is around 3.4 billion euros.
Above all, it is impressive that Crunchyroll (40 %) and Netflix (42 %) in 2023 together checked 82 % of the anime streaming market, whereas all other streaming platforms only made 18 %.
However, this does not mean that the other streaming services do not show growing interest in anime, after all, Prime Video recently announced an anime expansion and Disney+ also maintains its commitment in this area.
However, Netflix and Crunchyroll simply have a significant lead, which explains the more than clear duopoly at the current time.
Reasons for the duopol
For example, Netflix has a much larger user base, which gives the streaming service an advantage in terms of the visual life and the income per anime. In a past article, we have already reported that Netflix’s anime turnover is twice as high as that of Crunchyroll.
No wonder, after all, about half of all Netflix subscribers would watch at least one anime per year-around 150 million viewers. In addition, Netflix would be the first address for “Millennials” and “Gen Z” to see anime. Outside of Japan, anime was streamed around 6.3 billion hours in 2024.
In contrast, there are “only” around 30 million crunchyroll users, but they would be much more devoted, which is why the entire streaming period there is estimated at around 7.8 billion hours a year.
In 2020 it was officially said that a crunchyroll user spends an average of around 85 minutes a day on the platform. However, this number, like the entire anime catalog, may have increased.
In addition, Crunchyroll has a very large lead in the sale of merchandise as well as the licensing and production of anime.
In particular, the fact that the provider is heavily involved in anime production committees (for example at “Solo Leveling”) gives him great potential for license income. In 2023, total sales were over one billion euros.
