WBD’s Max Sets Asia Rollout Schedule

Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max streaming service will launch in five Southeast Asian markets, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the last quarter of this year and in Australia in the first half of 2025. The rollout will require multiple business models.

Max, a technologically enhanced platform that combines HBO and Discovery’s content offerings, has already rolled out in North America and parts of Europe and Latin America, but is only slowly coming to the Asia-Pacific region.

It will launch on Wednesday in Japan, in partnership with local Japanese streamer U-Next.

“In the coming weeks and months, we’re going to be making a lot of announcements,” said James Gibbons, president of Asia Pacific at Warner Bros. Discovery. “We’re going to be flexible and diverse in the way we work. We’re going to offer a mix of direct services and partnership models. Our goal is to reach the fan base.”

This will require direct-to-consumer launches, app integrations with partners, and deeper partner offerings with telcos, streamers, or pay-TV platforms. The launch of Max in Japan will see the entire Max service offered to Japanese consumers as a branded zone within the leading local streamer U-Next. It will be offered at no additional cost to U-Next users.

In Southeast Asia (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), the Max service will essentially replace HBO Go, a traditional, less tech-heavy service with more limited content. In Australia, a direct-to-consumer model will launch in the first half of 2025.

Speaking at the APOS Indonesia Media and Entertainment Conference on Wednesday, Gibbons was keen to stress the importance of a mix of local content.

“We take Asian content very seriously, both from a Max perspective and from a studio perspective. (Max) needs to be in close proximity to Asian content,” Gibbons said.

Gibbons described a two-pronged relationship with U-Next. “We have an agreement that allows us to access their Japanese content,” he said, suggesting there will be opportunities to bring U-Next’s Japanese content to viewers around the world beyond the Japanese streamer’s current reach.

Although HBO Asia is less active as a content sponsor than in previous years, WBD remains a producer in the region. In Japan, it is expanding as an anime producer and as the group’s IP localizer.