Magnite published Streams & Screens: Hong Kong on August 27, 2026, a survey of 920 adult streamers fielded in the first quarter of the year that puts mobile reach at 83% against 67% for connected television and stated advertising tolerance at seven minutes per hour of streaming.

The report is the Hong Kong edition of a proprietary research programme the sell-side company has now run across at least five markets, and it lands alongside a companion commentary piece from Priyanka Bajaj, Head of Demand Facilitation, Asia, drawing on a panel Magnite convened at its eMpower Hong Kong event. Both documents carry the same date. Neither is neutral: Magnite sells the inventory the numbers describe.

What the data does supply is a set of planning parameters for a market that has, until now, been thinly documented in English-language trade research. Several of those parameters sit meaningfully below the equivalent figures the same company published for the United States one week earlier.

What the survey measured

Fieldwork ran in the first quarter of 2026. The sample comprises 920 Hong Kong adults aged 18 and over who watch video content through streaming services, screened for consumption of ad-supported streaming. Magnite states the study was conducted in partnership with Bounce Insights, the same research technology firm behind its United States, Australian and New Zealand editions.

Age distribution concentrates in the middle brackets. The 25 to 34 cohort accounts for 33% of respondents and the 35 to 44 cohort 30%, while 18 to 24 year olds represent 13% and the 55-plus group just 5%. That last figure is worth holding onto: a sample in which only one in twenty respondents is over 55 will not describe the whole population's viewing habits, and Magnite does not claim otherwise.

Gender splits 52% female to 48% male. Geographically, respondents divide across New Territories (35%), Hong Kong Island (32%), Kowloon (32%) and Lantau Island (1%).

The screening criterion shapes every number that follows. Every respondent already streams. The findings describe behaviour inside an established audience rather than penetration across the general public.

Mobile leads, and the gap is wide

Device data is where Hong Kong departs most sharply from the markets Magnite has previously measured. According to the study, 83% of respondents use mobile devices for streaming against 67% who use connected television. In the United States edition released on August 20, 2026, connected television penetration for live streaming reached 92% against 82% for mobile, inverting the ordering.

The daypart curve reinforces the point. Mobile viewing runs above connected television through early morning, mid-morning and afternoon, with the two lines crossing only in the evening window between 5pm and 9pm, where connected television peaks at roughly 65% against mobile's 50%. After 9pm both fall away, with connected television retaining the lead. Magnite characterises streamers in the market as always on, with mobile viewing distributed through the day and connected television concentrated in primetime.

Benjamin Li, Controller (Marketing & Product Development) at MyTV Super, framed the shift from the broadcaster side in a statement included in the deck. "In Hong Kong's fast-paced environment, audiences move seamlessly across screens, with trusted local content playing a central role in streaming engagement," Li said. "As viewing shifts to the big screen, CTV is unlocking valuable co-viewing opportunities in premium household settings. With 2M+ monthly viewers, myTV SUPER continues to evolve alongside these behaviours."

Scale, growth and the ad-supported base

Magnite estimates approximately 5.1 million people in Hong Kong stream ad-supported video, citing Census Bureau and Statista figures rather than its own survey. Within the surveyed population, 63% report streaming more this year than last, and 57% say they will likely stream more next year than this.

Service stacking is lower than in Spain. Hong Kong streamers use four different services on average, against five in the Spanish edition. Openness to more is high: 58% say they are open to trying new services and 55% plan to sign up for one within the next year.

Platform reach among streamers reaches 97% for all streaming excluding social, measured as total unduplicated over-the-top reach, against 88% for YouTube. The deck also reports that 94% of people with internet access are active on the open web, defined to include streaming, gaming and podcast or music listening outside walled gardens.

The ad-supported tier is the default rather than the exception. According to the research, 79% of streamers use ad-supported services and accept seven minutes of advertising per hour. Among those not currently on an ad-supported tier, 45% plan to subscribe to one in the next year.

Seven minutes, against 8.7 in the United States

The ad load figure is the most operationally direct number in the report, and it sits noticeably below its comparators. Hong Kong streamers state a tolerance of seven minutes per hour. The United States edition put the equivalent figure at 8.7 minutes, with Australia at 7.9 and New Zealand at 7.6.

One methodological caveat applies to that comparison. The United States, Australian and New Zealand studies screened for live streaming specifically and asked about live content, where tolerance tends to run higher. The Hong Kong study covers ad-supported streaming generally. The two questions are adjacent rather than identical, and the 1.7 minute gap does not amount to a clean market-to-market differential.

Even allowing for that, seven minutes is a hard ceiling for pod construction. It sets an upper bound on how much commercial time an hour of Hong Kong streaming inventory can carry before stated tolerance is exceeded, and it is roughly half the load a linear break structure would deliver.

The living room stays shared

Connected television in Hong Kong functions as a household setting rather than a personal one. According to the study, 88% of viewers stream connected television content in shared home spaces such as the living room, and 72% of those streaming on connected television always or often watch with other people. The average connected television streamer watches with three other people.

The attitudinal consequences are measured directly. Among co-viewers, 57% discuss advertisements with others while watching, 52% think advertisements are more relevant while co-viewing, 51% think they are more memorable, and 50% pay more attention to them.

Johnny Ng, Vice President, Marketing and Growth, Hong Kong at WPP Media, described the channel's position in a statement in the deck. "In Hong Kong, streaming TV has firmly moved from an emerging channel to a core part of how people consume premium content on the biggest screen in the home," Ng said. "CTV now sits at the intersection of attention, culture and measurability, combining the emotional impact of TV with the precision and flexibility of digital."

Co-viewing has moved from a footnote to a currency question over the past year. Google shifted its own reach metrics to a total co-view definition on June 2, 2026, altering seven campaign-level figures without any change to delivery. A VAB and TVision study published in February 2026 measured co-viewing at 60% of impressions on premium video platforms against 45% on YouTube. Magnite's 72% figure sits above both, though it records self-reported behaviour rather than measured impressions.

Local content carries a language premium

Content preference in Hong Kong tilts local first and international second. Local drama produced within Hong Kong reaches 74% of streamers, ahead of international drama produced outside the greater China region at 70%. Lifestyle, travel and food content follows at 65%, comedy at 62%, Korean drama at 57% and reality or competition formats at 55%. Regional drama produced within the greater China region sits lower, at 47%. Live sports reaches 44% and video podcasts 23%.

Three figures translate that preference into advertising terms. According to the research, 64% say advertisements delivered in the same language as the content are more effective, 61% report a stronger connection to advertisements aligned with local culture or content, and 66% are more likely to pay attention to advertisements targeted towards their interests.

Jo Liu, Associate Director Digital Advertising at South China Morning Post, described the publisher-side response in the accompanying commentary. "Consumers increasingly come to us as their second screen," Liu said. "That's why we've evolved beyond traditional articles to deliver video, interactive graphics and richer storytelling experiences that match how audiences engage today."

Interest data completes the targeting picture. Travel and tourism leads at 70%, followed by food and cooking and personal finance at 59% each, entertainment at 57%, health and fitness at 56%, then fashion and gaming at 48%. On the calendar, Christmas and New Year rank first for spending intent at 65%, Lunar New Year second at 55% and Singles Day third at 42%.

Second screening and the commerce path

Over half of Hong Kong viewers, 56%, always or often use a second screen while streaming content on a television. Of the activities measured on that device, social media leads at 73%, internet browsing at 62% and messaging at 55%. Online shopping accounts for 37%, a figure Magnite frames as identifying a group primed for actionable formats.

Angel Koh, Head of Sales at Carousell Media, connected that behaviour to marketplace traffic. "More than 90% of our users are on mobile, making it the natural second screen," Koh said. "Consumers often discover a product on TV, then immediately turn to Carousell to search and learn more."

Cross-device exposure appears to compound. According to the study, 61% regularly see the same advertisement across multiple devices, and 55% indicate they are more likely to take action when they do. Unaided recall runs close between devices: 47% can clearly remember details of an advertisement from their last connected television session, against 45% for smartphone.

That near-parity is an unusual result. It undercuts the standard assumption that the large screen delivers materially stronger recall than mobile, at least on a self-reported basis in this market.

Vertical video is not a side channel

The short-form vertical numbers are among the strongest in the deck. Any vertical video reaches 97% of respondents. Short-form scripted series, which the deck labels microdramas, reach 76%. User-generated short-form video reaches 73% and short-form factual content such as news clips and sports highlights 72%.

Daily frequency is high. Some 77% watch any vertical video at least once per day, 61% watch news daily, 50% entertainment and celebrity content, 49% microdramas and 43% sports.

Commercial engagement follows. According to the research, 75% say the short-form content they watch contains advertising, 65% say those advertisements are as memorable as sponsored content, 22% regularly click links in vertical video advertisements and 20% have made a purchase from one.

Microdramas have moved from a Chinese-market curiosity to a global format in under two years. Short drama applications recorded 2.3 billion global downloads in 2025, with install growth of 238% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026 according to Adjust and Sensor Tower data. A 49% daily microdrama viewing rate in Hong Kong places the format alongside entertainment programming rather than below it.

Format awareness lags willingness to engage

The emerging format data repeats a pattern documented in Magnite's other market editions: awareness runs below stated willingness to engage for every format except the most established one.

Actionable advertisements, defined in the deck as units allowing a click or scan to purchase or visit a website, register 57% awareness against 53% likelihood to engage. Pause advertisements register 37% awareness against 47% engagement likelihood. Connected television homescreen advertisements register 36% awareness against 46% engagement likelihood.

Funnel performance among respondents aware of each format shows actionable units outperforming at the bottom. In-stream targeted advertisements produce a search or discussion for 61%, a save or click for 53% and a cart addition or purchase for 38%. Actionable advertisements return 55%, 54% and 46%. Tile advertisements return 53%, 46% and 37%. Pause advertisements trail at 42%, 36% and 31%.

Two years of standards work sit behind those format labels. IAB Tech Lab published guidelines for six connected television formats on December 11, 2025, covering pause, menu, squeezeback, overlay, in-scene and screensaver units. Signalling guidance for those formats was finalised on July 22, 2026, after which The Trade Desk opened OpenPath to pause advertisements. Magnite itself rolled out pause advertisements across DIRECTV, Dish Media and Fubo in August 2025 and added Philo through a six-partner supply group in June 2026.

Generative AI: acceptance high, disclosure preference higher

The study includes a section on generative artificial intelligence in creative production. According to the research, 89% say generative AI commercials would not negatively affect their perception of a brand, and only 16% report discomfort watching advertisements created using AI. Some 56% are open to brands using AI to make the advertising experience more personalised, and 58% believe AI-made advertisements can be as engaging as traditional ones.

The transparency figure cuts against that acceptance. Some 72% would prefer brands to disclose when an advertisement has been created with generative AI. That is one point above the 71% recorded in the United States edition.

The disclosure question is unsettled at industry level. The IAB published version 2 of its AI Transparency and Disclosure Framework on August 18, 2026, citing an NYU Stern finding that disclosure cut click-through rates by 31.5% and using that cost to argue against blanket labelling. The January 2026 edition documented a 37-point gap between advertiser assumptions and Gen Z consumer sentiment on AI-made advertising. Preferring disclosure and penalising its absence are not the same measurement, and the Hong Kong data does not test the second.

Live streaming and the attention argument

Live content reaches 66% of Hong Kong viewers at least once a month. During live sporting events, 50% always or often co-view with others. Recall runs at 57%, with that share more likely to remember brands advertising during live streams, and 48% report being more likely to take an action based on an advertisement seen during a live stream.

The commentary piece Magnite published alongside the deck turns those figures towards a measurement argument. Louis Ng, Head of Programmatic at Havas Media, described the agency-side shift. "We're evolving our measurement frameworks to focus less on how much media we buy and more on the attention we generate," Ng said, citing a Havas Media Network global study that analysed over 9,000 brand lift campaigns and 5.6 million impressions and found attention correlating with brand outcomes.

Prachi Karan, Head of Data & Tech Solutions at Publicis Media, framed the sequencing problem. "Reach is important, but consumers don't need to see the same ad repeatedly," Karan said. "The opportunity is to sequence messages, starting with brand storytelling and following up with ads that move people closer to action."

Koh identified the gap the industry has not closed. "Advertisers still buy media on CPMs, but they're evaluating success through ROAS and ROI," she said. "Closing that gap is one of the industry's biggest opportunities."

Discrepancies between the deck and the summary

Two inconsistencies inside the source material are worth recording.

The key takeaways slide states that 90% of respondents regularly watch addressable short-form vertical video. The detail slide reports 97% for any vertical video viewed and 77% watching at least once per day. The 90% figure does not appear anywhere in the underlying data pages, and the deck does not define which measure it summarises.

The same slide states that 48% are more likely to purchase from an advertisement shown during a live stream. The detail slide states that 48% are more likely to take an action based on an advertisement seen during a live stream. Action and purchase are different outcomes, and the summary reads the narrower of the two into a figure the data page reports more broadly.

The commentary piece adds a third. It describes more than half of viewers multitasking while watching television and 55% highly likely to take action after seeing an advertisement on multiple devices. Both trace to deck figures of 56% and 55%, but the second-screen and cross-device exposure questions are separate measures presented as a single behavioural claim.

Why the numbers matter for the marketing community

Magnite has a direct commercial interest in the conclusions. The recommendation pages appended to the deck advise buyers to plan around shared connected television environments, adopt unified cross-screen strategies, use live streaming and emerging formats, and treat vertical video as a performance channel. Each maps onto inventory and tooling the company sells.

The scale of that commercial position has grown through 2026. Connected television contribution excluding traffic acquisition costs crossed 51% of Magnite's total for the first time in the first quarter, then grew 36% year on year to $97.1 million in the second quarter. The company launched Live Scheduler within SpringServe on November 18, 2025 and published a technical guide on live delivery ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in March 2026.

Setting the commercial framing aside, three figures carry planning weight independent of who published them.

The first is the device ordering. A market where mobile reaches 83% and connected television 67% inverts the assumption underpinning most cross-screen planning templates built for North America and Western Europe. Budget splits calibrated on a connected-television-first market will misallocate in Hong Kong.

The second is the language and cultural alignment data. At 64% and 61%, the stated effectiveness premium for same-language and locally aligned creative gives local publishers a quantified argument in direct negotiations, and gives international brands a reason to localise rather than run regional creative unchanged.

The third is the ad load ceiling. Seven minutes per hour is a testable number. It can be checked against measured completion and abandonment data on live inventory, and the distance between stated tolerance and observed behaviour is where the useful measurement work now sits.

All of these figures are self-reported survey responses rather than measured exposure or verified purchase behaviour. The sample skews young, with 5% aged 55 and over. The commissioning party sells the inventory. Those three qualifications apply to every number in the report.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Magnite (NASDAQ: MGNI), the largest independent sell-side advertising company, with fieldwork executed by research technology firm Bounce Insights. Priyanka Bajaj, Head of Demand Facilitation, Asia, authored the accompanying commentary. Executives quoted across the two documents include Benjamin Li of MyTV Super, Johnny Ng of WPP Media, Angel Koh of Carousell Media, Jo Liu of South China Morning Post, Louis Ng of Havas Media and Prachi Karan of Publicis Media.

What: Publication of Streams & Screens: Hong Kong, a proprietary survey of 920 Hong Kong adults aged 18 and over who watch ad-supported streaming. Headline findings include 83% mobile and 67% connected television usage, stated tolerance of seven minutes of advertising per hour, 88% of connected television viewing in shared home spaces, 72% co-viewing with an average of three other people, 56% second-screen use with 37% shopping online, 97% vertical video reach with 20% having purchased from a vertical video advertisement, and 72% preferring disclosure of generative AI in creative.

When: Fieldwork was conducted in the first quarter of 2026. Both the research deck and the accompanying commentary carry the date August 27, 2026.

Where: Hong Kong, with respondents drawn from New Territories (35%), Hong Kong Island (32%), Kowloon (32%) and Lantau Island (1%). The panel commentary originated at Magnite's eMpower Hong Kong event.

Why: The report supplies device, format and ad load parameters for a market that inverts the connected-television-first ordering documented in Magnite's United States, Australian and New Zealand editions. Mobile leads connected television by 16 percentage points, stated ad tolerance runs 1.7 minutes below the United States figure, and short-form vertical video reaches 97% of streamers with a fifth reporting a purchase from the format. Magnite is the commissioning party and sells the inventory described, which places the appended recommendations in direct alignment with its own product line.