About WeTV

WeTV

WeTV is the international streaming service of Tencent Video, operated by the Chinese technology group Tencent as the overseas counterpart of one of China's largest subscription video platforms. Based within Tencent's operations headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, WeTV was created to take Chinese drama, variety, film and animation directly to audiences outside mainland China, rather than relying entirely on third-party licensors in each foreign market. Its official service is at wetv.vip, and it is curated specifically for international viewers, with local-language subtitling and dubbing, local partnerships and, increasingly, locally produced original series in its core Southeast Asian markets.

The service is best understood as an export platform with a local face. Its catalogue, technology and production pipeline come largely from Tencent Video in China, including originals produced by Tencent Penguin Pictures, while its presentation, partnerships and marketing are adapted market by market. That combination — a very large Chinese content library behind a Southeast Asian storefront — has defined WeTV's growth since its first overseas launch in Thailand in June 2019, through its acquisition of the Malaysian streamer iflix in 2020, and into its later push into original production in Thailand, Indonesia and other regional markets.

Parent Company and Origins in Tencent Video

WeTV's parent platform, Tencent Video, was launched by Tencent in April 2011, when it opened with an independent domain; its documentary channel followed in June of that year. By August 2012 Tencent Video had reached 200 million daily average broadcasts, and in April 2013 it reached agreements with six major international production companies — BBC Worldwide, ITV Studios, Fremantle Media, All3Media International and Endemol among them — and launched what was described as China's first British drama broadcast platform. In 2015 Tencent established Tencent Pictures as a film production and distribution company and Tencent Penguin Pictures as a production unit focused on online drama, working closely with Tencent Video. Those production arms matter for WeTV because they supply much of the premium Chinese content that the international service carries first or exclusively outside China.

By the time WeTV was being prepared for overseas launch, Tencent Video was one of China's largest subscription services. Tencent reported that Tencent Video had over 110 million paid subscribers at the end of March 2020, and a figure of 112 million paying subscribers in the first quarter of 2020 was cited by analysts at Omdia. Wikipedia summaries of the platform, drawing on company reporting, put Tencent Video at 120 million paid subscribers as of October 2022, ranking it among the largest streaming services in the world at that time. Tencent Video has also been described in company presentations as reaching more than 200 million users overall, with nearly 100 million paid subscribers by the end of June 2019. That scale gave Tencent both the catalogue depth and the financial capacity to attempt a direct overseas service at a moment when most Chinese video platforms still reached foreign audiences mainly through licensing deals.

Tencent itself, founded in Shenzhen in November 1998, already operated other entertainment services in Southeast Asia before WeTV, notably the music streaming service JOOX and the mobile version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Reporting on the Thailand launch noted that Tencent's existing Thai user base made the country a natural first target, and that WeTV added a premium video service alongside those existing products in the region of some 650 million people that Tencent was seeking to serve more directly.

Launch in Thailand and Early Expansion

WeTV was first launched in Thailand in June 2019, described at the time by Reuters and other outlets as Tencent's first overseas video streaming service. Jeff Han, then Senior Vice President of Tencent Penguin Pictures, presented Thailand as a priority market because Chinese-speaking and Chinese-content audiences there were expected to be receptive, and because Tencent already had users in the country. At launch in Thailand, the service featured original Chinese content from Tencent Penguin Pictures with Thai dubbing, together with content created with local partners.

During the second half of 2019 Tencent expanded the international version of WeTV beyond Thailand to Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and India. Contemporary industry reporting summarised the sequence as Thailand first, followed by Indonesia, Vietnam and India in the second half of 2019, with Malaysia and the Philippines also added as the service was built out across Southeast Asia. In October 2019 Tencent also led a US$111 million funding round in India's video streaming service MX Player, a separate investment that underlined how seriously the group was treating overseas video at exactly the moment WeTV was expanding.

The early proposition was deliberately narrow and clear: WeTV would be the first platform able to offer the latest Chinese content to Southeast Asian audiences directly, in local languages, close to its release in China. Kaichen Li, who served as head of WeTV and iflix at Tencent, later summarised that positioning at an industry keynote, saying WeTV was focusing on Asian markets outside mainland China, had launched first in Thailand and then in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and was the first platform able to offer the latest Chinese content to audiences in Southeast Asia. That first-window claim became the core of WeTV's marketing against both global and regional rivals.

Content Strategy and Signature Titles

Chinese drama is the centre of WeTV's catalogue. Costume drama, xianxia fantasy, contemporary romance and variety programming from Tencent Video form the hero content that draws most subscribers, supported by animation, film and, in later presentations, sports. Tencent has said that Tencent Video and WeTV offer about 50,000 hours of content in Southeast Asia across genres including animation, variety, films and sports, with 30 to 40 new drama titles produced in China every year forming the basis of the overseas platform's offering.

The title most closely associated with WeTV's early international breakthrough is The Untamed (2019), the xianxia drama that became a signature title for its international growth and built a large global fandom. Academic and industry writing on Chinese fantasy drama in Southeast Asia repeatedly cites The Untamed, alongside later titles such as Till the End of the Moon and Love Between Fairy and Devil, as examples of the genre that streaming platforms including WeTV carried to regional audiences with local subtitles and dubbing. The success of such titles demonstrated that Chinese fantasy and costume drama, properly localised, could compete for young Southeast Asian audiences who were also being courted by Korean drama and by American global platforms.

Variety and idol programming form a second strand. Tencent Video's talent and variety formats were exported through WeTV, and later reporting on Chinese platforms in Southeast Asia noted that WeTV, which entered the region in 2019, focused on idol programmes designed to engage younger viewers, with initiatives that produced acts including the seven-member boy band INTO1's successor projects and, in later coverage, NexT1DE. Licensed and original variety sits alongside drama in the catalogue, giving the service a broader entertainment offer than a drama-only library would provide.

Acquisition of iflix

The decisive step in WeTV's expansion came in June 2020, when Tencent confirmed that it had purchased the content, technology and resources of iflix, the Malaysia-headquartered regional streaming service. Tencent said in its statement that iflix's catalogue of international, local and original content would enable it to expand the reach of WeTV, and that through the purchase WeTV would further extend its presence across Southeast Asia, reach a broader audience base and better serve users with a better viewing experience. The value of the deal was not disclosed by either company; Variety, which first reported the agreement, cited people with knowledge of it as putting the price at several tens of millions of dollars — far below the roughly US$1 billion valuation iflix had sought in 2019 when it planned a public listing in Australia.

Iflix, founded in 2014, brought scale that WeTV could not have built quickly on its own. It reported more than 25 million active users across 13 markets — Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Bangladesh — and had raised over US$300 million, with some reports putting total fundraising above US$348 million across seven rounds, while accumulating heavy losses. Analysts at Omdia described the transaction as, by far, the biggest international expansion by a Chinese company in the online video sector, and noted that iflix's localised content and telecommunications partnerships would strengthen Tencent's portfolio in the region.

At the time of the deal, industry sources said the iflix brand would continue to operate for at least six to twelve months, and that Marc Barnett would continue as chief executive for the foreseeable future, with the brand to continue for a transition period under Tencent. Over time iflix was integrated with WeTV's operations, so that its technology, local content relationships, audience and telco partnerships strengthened a single international business headed within Tencent's overseas video operation. The acquisition therefore changed WeTV from a newly launched export service into one of Southeast Asia's largest regional streaming operations almost overnight.

Local Originals and Partnerships

From early on, Tencent said WeTV would not rely only on imported Chinese programming. At the Thailand launch, Han said the service would feature content created with local partners, and before the iflix acquisition Tencent had already been reaching out to key content providers in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Indonesia. In Thailand, WeTV announced an important partnership with BEC World, one of the country's major broadcasters, as part of that local strategy.

Local original production then became a formal pillar of the service. In January 2022 WeTV announced plans to ramp up its presence in Southeast Asia through the year, with over 40 locally produced WeTV Originals projects in its 2022 pipeline, produced locally in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Named examples at the time included the Thai adaptation The Wife, based on a popular Thai novel, the Thai romantic comedy Valentine's Again, the Indonesian hit My Girlfriend Is an Alien returning for a second season, and Little Mom 2 and My Lecturer My Husband Season 2. The company noted that in 2021 WeTV Originals in Thailand had been nominated for six awards at the 26th Asian Television Awards, described as one of Asia's largest television awards events.

That local slate has continued to develop. Later Tencent presentations in Singapore showcased continued investment in original content in Southeast Asia for WeTV, including Chinese, Thai and Indonesian originals, with Tencent Vice President Jeff Han outlining a slate that included Indonesian series produced with local studios such as Hitmaker Studios and Unlimited Studio, and a China-Thailand collaboration. Han said at that presentation that between 10 and 12 long-form series are made in Indonesia and Thailand each year alongside the much larger Chinese slate, and that Tencent Video had reached 114 million subscribers. Local originals serve several purposes at once: they build national brand loyalty, they give viewers programming in their own language and setting, and they differentiate WeTV from global rivals whose local production in smaller Southeast Asian markets has historically been more limited.

Leadership and Organisation

WeTV sits inside Tencent's video business as the international arm of Tencent Video. Jeff Han, as Senior Vice President of Tencent Penguin Pictures and later as a Tencent Video vice president and WeTV director, was the public face of the Thailand launch in 2019, of Tencent Video's international presentation at MIPCOM in Cannes in October 2019, and of the 2022 Southeast Asia expansion announcement, in which he was identified as WeTV Director and Vice President of Tencent Video. Kaichen Li served as head of WeTV and iflix after the 2020 acquisition, presenting the combined business's Southeast Asian ambitions in industry keynotes and explaining how the iflix purchase was expected to create synergies with the existing WeTV operation.

Organisationally, the pattern is a central Chinese content and technology base combined with country-level teams and partners. Tencent Video in China commissions and produces the core catalogue through units such as Penguin Pictures; WeTV's regional operation handles localisation, local commissioning, partnerships with broadcasters and telecommunications companies, and advertiser and brand partnerships in Southeast Asia. The January 2022 announcement was addressed in part to local brands and advertisers, inviting them to join forces in reaching WeTV viewers — a signal that the service operates both subscription and advertising-supported elements in its markets, rather than a single global subscription model.

Competition and Market Position

WeTV competes in Southeast Asia with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video globally, with iQIYI International as its closest Chinese rival, and with PCCW's Viu as the leading Hong Kong-based regional service, as well as with local broadcasters' own streaming offers. Reporting at the time of the iflix deal consistently framed the field that way: WeTV would face a crowded market including Netflix and iQIYI, along with PCCW's services. The rivalry with iQIYI is structural — both are large Chinese platforms that launched dedicated international services in 2019, both chose Southeast Asia as their first battleground, and both combine Chinese drama exports with local originals.

Later market reporting suggested that strategy had gained real traction. Coverage drawing on Nikkei reporting in 2025 said Chinese platforms already controlled around 40 percent of the streaming market in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia combined, surpassing the roughly 30 percent share held by American services, and that the Southeast Asian streaming market was expected to reach US$6.8 billion by 2030. Those figures cover Chinese platforms collectively rather than WeTV alone, and should be read in that context, but they illustrate the market WeTV helped to create: one in which Chinese drama and locally made Southeast Asian originals are a mainstream, not niche, part of regional streaming.

Within that market WeTV described itself in 2022 as one of the largest digital video streaming destinations in several Asian markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and reported a milestone of over 60 million downloads globally in 2021, a 31 percent growth compared with 2020. Downloads are not the same as paying subscribers, and WeTV does not publish a separate audited subscriber total comparable to Tencent Video's domestic figure, but the download milestone and the iflix user base together indicate a service operating at regional scale rather than as a small expatriate or diaspora niche.

Localisation, Technology and Audience Experience

Localisation is the operational heart of WeTV. The service offers Chinese dramas and variety with local-language subtitling and dubbing in its markets; scholarly writing on its early Thai entry notes that during its initial entry into the Thai market WeTV offered original Chinese content with Thai dubbing, and after acquiring iflix expanded to include Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian subtitles to cater to regional audiences. In practice that means a title released in China can be presented, within a short window, with Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Malay or other regional language support, alongside English for wider international audiences.

The iflix inheritance strengthened that local infrastructure. Iflix had built an advertising-supported free model, local content relationships and partnerships with local telecom operators across markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines — distribution channels that matter in markets where mobile viewing, prepaid data and telco bundling are central to how audiences pay for and discover streaming. Combining that infrastructure with Tencent Video's catalogue and technology allowed WeTV to offer both free, advertising-supported viewing and paid tiers in a way modelled on regional habits rather than importing a single subscription template from China or the United States.

On the product side, WeTV is delivered as a website at wetv.vip and as mobile and connected-device applications, curated for international viewers. Tencent has presented the platform as offering tens of thousands of hours of programming in Southeast Asia — about 50,000 hours across animation, variety, film, drama and sports in its later presentations — supported by the recommendation and streaming technology developed for Tencent Video's much larger domestic operation. The emphasis in its own announcements is consistently on speed of access to new Chinese episodes, completeness of local-language support, and a growing shelf of local originals sitting beside the imported catalogue.

Significance and Development

WeTV's significance extends beyond its own subscriber numbers. Its launch in 2019 and the iflix acquisition in 2020 marked the moment China's online video industry moved from licensing content abroad to operating consumer streaming services abroad in its own name — a shift Omdia identified at the time as the biggest international expansion by a Chinese online-video company. Together with iQIYI International, launched in the same year, WeTV established Southeast Asia as the first region where Chinese, American and regional streaming services compete head-to-head for the same young, mobile-first audiences.

The service also illustrates a wider Tencent pattern: build a dominant domestic platform, in this case Tencent Video from its April 2011 launch to more than 110 million paid subscribers by early 2020, create in-house production capacity through Penguin Pictures and Tencent Pictures, and then export the combined catalogue, technology and production system under a distinct international brand. WeTV is that brand — legally and operationally part of Tencent, editorially centred on Chinese drama, and increasingly, through its Thai, Indonesian, Malaysian and Philippine originals, a Southeast Asian producer in its own right.