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Every indication from the anime industry seems to be pointed toward growth. As companies like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Disney continue to expand their anime offerings, market research suggests that studios need to start looking outside Japan rather than in it if they want to stay competitive. The international streaming market for anime is expected to triple by 2030 until it dwarfs the Japanese market.

The data comes from Wall Street research firm Bernstein, which estimates that in five years, the anime streaming market outside Japan will reach a staggering $12.5 billion. That is more than triple what it was in 2023, but that isn’t the really interesting bit. The same study predicts that the global anime streaming market (which includes Japan) will be $16 billion by 2023.

A quick bit of math says that, if these figures hold, streaming outside of Japan will account for more than 78% of the market. This growth is likely to be filled by companies like Crunchyroll, which continues to have the largest anime library available, and Netflix, which has made a concerted effort in the wake of their popular One Piece live-action adaptation, to give a greater focus on anime. Together, the two companies make up over 80% of the anime streaming industry and that doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon.

That isn’t to say that Disney is completely out of the picture; they have new episodes of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War each year on Disney+ and the entirety of the Sailor Moon and the legendary Macross series in their Hulu library. However, with the global anime streaming market set to become three times as valuable as the Japanese streaming market, expect companies to keep spending more to lure anime fans to their services going forward.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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