The Walt Disney Company is ramping up its local content investments in Japan and Korea as it enters a new phase of scaled production, while plotting expansion of its ESPN sports offering beyond Australia and New Zealand.

Luke Kang , president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific, says the streamer is maturing its regional strategy after four years of laying groundwork in most markets. Disney+ is now focusing on high-quality productions from Japan and Korea that can travel globally, while monitoring emerging opportunities in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

“We’ve been in the region now for about four or five years, and I think most of our markets are in the fourth year post launch,” Kang tells Variety . “We always looked at the first few years as a period of se

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