In December 2025, Netflix purchased the Warner Bros. Discovery trust for $83 billion, a transaction that will fundamentally reshape the global streaming landscape. WBD owns HBO Max, the world’s third-largest streaming service, and the merger creates an unprecedented concentration of content and market power. The formalization of this acquisition is estimated to take between 12 and 18 months, given the dominant position that the new entity would have in most markets. According to preliminary information, the two services and their film catalogs will initially remain distinct, with HBO productions gradually integrating into Netflix’s catalog over time, though a completely new unified platform may eventually be launched. This consolidation will have profound consequences particularly in Euro-Atlantic states, where the combined „Netflix Max” (a journalistic label for the post-integration situation) is expected to overwhelming market share, fundamentally altering competitive dynamics and content distribution patterns.
VOD — Global Figures
American companies dominate both film production and television programming. The inevitable consequence is that they also dominate the Video-on-Demand (VOD) services market. Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO, Disney/Hulu, Peacock (NBC), AppleTV, Sky Showtime are global leaders, though not all are present in the same countries.
The global leader is Netflix, with over 300 million subscribers. It is followed by Disney+ and HBO Max, with nearly 130 million subscribers each. The global ranking is completed by Paramount+ and Peacock, with 79 and 41 million respectively. (Since subscriptions are family-based and allow multiple access points, the number of users is 2-6 times higher.)
From country to country, there are also non-American competitors: national or regional. In France, Canal+ is among the top 5 streaming services, though it has exclusive programs, and the premium subscription includes AppleTV, Netflix, HBO and others. Even under these conditions, the French market is led by Netflix.
Rakuten, with two distinct vectors for Spanish language and the Far East, fails to be a leader in either market. In Germany, RTL+ has 6 million subscribers but represents only about 5% of the market.
Similarly, in Central and Eastern European markets like Romania, Netflix and HBO hold approximately 80% combined market share. Some international platforms are not present (Hulu, Paramount), have agreements with other streaming platforms (Disney, SkyShowtime), or maintain extremely restricted catalogs (Amazon Prime).
In traditional US-friendly markets including the United States itself, as UK, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands, Netflix consistently maintains dominant positions, though with varying degrees of competition from Disney+, Amazon Prime, and regional players.
VOD: Geopolitics
China, Russia and Arab countries are the only regions where American supremacy is undermined by local or regional companies, or which simply ban American companies.
Russia and Arab Countries
Russia, after sanctioning Netflix for including films contrary to official propaganda, has only local services: IWI and, primarily, Kino Poisk. (The latter is a Yandex service — the Russian search engine created as an alternative to Google). Most productions are in Russian, but the most watched programs remain American: Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Sopranos — all available on Kino Poisk. The total number of VOD subscribers is 16 million — in a population of 144 million.
In Arab countries, the main streaming service provider is the Saudi company Shahid. The service’s name simply means „martyr,” but the programs are less fundamentalist than might appear. The channel includes comedies, podcasts and even satire, and some programs even support women’s emancipation. Turkish series are among the most open to modernization.
China
In China, as in Russia, global companies are absent. Under these conditions, Tencent, with 114 million subscribers, becomes internationally relevant. The vast majority of content is Chinese, but some Western programs are included (part of an agreement with HBO). Local versions of these films and series are extremely censored. For example, Game of Thrones episodes are about 10 minutes shorter to eliminate nudity, violence and elements that might have political resonance. The other VOD service provider in China is iQIYI. This service also has global reach, totaling 100 million subscribers.
India and Indonesia
In India, a country whose culture has been reconstructed around Bollywood, the main VOD service provider is JioHotstar. The company distributes numerous local products (including Disney India — Hotstar), as well as Warner Bros. The service resulted from the recent merger of local market leaders, and the doubling of the film catalog led to a remarkable explosion in subscriber numbers: from 133 million to 280 million (including the Far East). With these figures, Jio reaches second place globally, although its presence is only regional.
Other local companies (SonyLiv or ZEE5) also have relevant shares in the Indian market, as do Amazon Prime (20 million subscribers) and Netflix (12 million). All these companies also produce content in India.
Indonesia, another rising country — demographically, economically and culturally — has as its main VOD service that offered by Chinese company Viu. Headquartered in Hong Kong, this service is not available in the rest of China (PRC), but dominates Southeast Asia, from Thailand to the Philippines. Viu services include HBO programs, as well as Chinese and East Asian dramas. Viu’s competitors in Indonesia and Thailand are Netflix and JioHotstar.
Top 10 SVOD Globally
By number of subscribers, regardless of whether the service has global or only regional audience.
| Rank | Service (SVOD) | Subscribers (estimate) |
| 1 | Netflix (USA) | 301.6 million |
| 2 | JioHotstar (India) | 280 million |
| 3 | Amazon Prime Video (USA) | 200-240 million |
| 4 | Disney+ (USA) | 131 million |
| 5 | Max (HBO Max + Discovery+) (USA) | 128 million |
| 6 | Tencent Video (China) | 114 million |
| 7 | Hulu (USA) | 64.1 million |
| 8 | iQIYI (China) | 100-113 million |
| 9 | Paramount+ (USA) | 77.5 million |
| 10 | Apple TV+ (USA) | 40-45 million |
Note: Disney, Hulu and ESPN are part of the same trust, but in many markets have separate services.
Note 2: Based on estimates, not official figures, 10th place may be contested by Peacock, with 41 million subscribers in some estimates.
Streaming is a competitive and increasingly diverse ecosystem globally, where American platforms continue to attract the majority of subscribers, while regional services and state-backed alternatives play crucial roles in specific markets. The geopolitical dimension of streaming reflects broader patterns of cultural influence, technological access, and political control, creating a fragmented global landscape where content flows are shaped as much by market forces as by national policies and cultural preferences.
(article edited and translated with AI after the Romanian version: De la Netflix la TIFF Unlimited: streamingul în România, între divertisment de masă și film de autor; illustration: Pexels.com)