A new industry report provides comprehensive insights into the global development of the anime market – with some very surprising results in terms of streaming, viewership and popular series. We summarize below.
Netflix before Crunchyroll
As part of the “Anime Global White Paper 2026” study, 15,000 participants from 15 countries were surveyed to determine trends in anime consumption from 2020 to 2025. It turned out that Netflix is the most important platform for anime content in most of the markets examined.
The streaming service is in first place in a total of seven of the nine largest anime markets, including Germany. In Japan and China, however, Netflix didn’t even make it into the top 3.
YouTube and Prime Video also performed very strongly, reaching top spots in many regions. Here too, YouTube and Prime Video complete the podium of the most important anime platforms.
Crunchyroll, on the other hand, is only in the top 3 in Brazil, but remains consistently in the top 10 outside of Japan, China and South Korea.
Global trends
Another interesting aspect of the report concerns the popularity of individual works. While »Naruto« continues to be one of the most successful franchises internationally, the series fell significantly behind in Japan and only ended up in 15th place.
In the home country of anime, however, other classics such as “Detective Conan”, “One Piece”, “Pokémon” and “Dragon Ball” dominate the popularity scale. Series such as “Demon Slayer” and “Jujutsu Kaisen,” which are represented in all countries examined, also make it clear that newer titles also play an important role.
Finally, let’s take a look at the user numbers. Here, Japan, China and India lead the ranking, with India in particular experiencing strong growth and increasingly becoming one of the most important anime markets in the world – something that Crunchyroll also recognized early on.
China is also becoming increasingly important for the anime industry – not only as a sales market, but also increasingly as an important location for production.
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Via GEM standard
© Saka Mikami, Kodansha / The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity Production Committee