Viewers around the world watched more than three billion hours of top 10 Asian titles on Netflix in the first half of this year – a fraction over 62% of all hours logged for series on the weekly non-English TV top 10.

Our calculations, based on Netflix’s published weekly top 10 rankings from 29 Dec 2025 to 28 June 2026, show a total of 4.95 billion hours that viewers around the world spent watching non-English TV titles.  

Out of 260 total chart slots over the period, Asian titles filled 143 (55%) of them. 50 Asian titles appeared on the top 10 across the 26 weeks. 

Asia’s 3.08 billion hours was well ahead of Europe, which ended June at 1.25 billion hours, or Latin America, which attracted 460 million hours over the first 26 weeks of 2026. African shows on the Netflix top 10 were watched for 145 million hours. The Middle East came in at 19 million hours. 

Asian titles held the top spot in 16 of the 26 weeks. 11 series hit #1. 

The most-watched non-English series for the first half was Korean action drama limited series, “Teach You a Lesson”, based on a webtoon about a government-sanctioned vigilante squad deployed to restore order in schools plagued by bullying, academic corruption and toxic parents. 

Over its first four weeks in the top 10, “Teach You a Lesson” accumulated nearly 499 million hours viewed (46.6 million views*), making it the standout title of the first half of 2026 and a key driver of Asia’s dominant share of global non-English TV viewing hours during this period.

“Teach You a Lesson” was a hit from the get-go, debuting at #1 on the global non-English TV top 10 in its first week of release (1-7 June 2026), and holding that position for four consecutive weeks through 28 June. Viewership peaked in its second week (8-14 June), pulling 225.8 million hours viewed (21.1 million views), before easing to 126.2 million hours (11.8 million views) in week three and 78.2 million hours (7.3 million views) in week four. 

The second most-viewed Asian series for the first half of 2026 (by total hours viewed) was Korean romcom, “Can This Love Be Translated?”, with 271 million hours viewed (20.6 million views) across its five weeks in the top 10. 

“Can This Love Be Translated?” entered the charts at #2 in the week of 12-18 January, then climbed to #1 for two straight weeks (19 January-1 February), its strongest stretch, driven by a peak of 118 million hours viewed (9 million views) in the week of 19-25 January alone. 

From there the series declined steadily, dropping to #3 (2-8 February) with 31.6 million hours viewed, and after a gap of two weeks off the chart, reappearing briefly at #9 (23 February-1 March) with 11.6 million hours viewed (900,000 views) before falling out of the top 10 for good. 

The trajectory shows a classic front-loaded release pattern: a fast rise to #1 followed by a sharp, sustained decline, in contrast to “Teach You a Lesson”, which held #1 for four consecutive weeks after its release.

Neeraj Pandey’s Hindi-language crime thriller, “Taskaree: The Smuggler’s Web”, was the sole non-Korean Asian title to hold the #1 spot in the first half of the year. “Taskaree” ranked #15 of all Asian shows over the six months by total hours viewed; the seven-episode series ended its run on the top 10 with a total of 65.3 million hours viewed.

“Taskaree” is about a dedicated incorruptible team of customs officers at Mumbai International Airport on a mission to dismantle an international smuggling syndicate. The show was #1 for the week of 12-18 January with 29.4 million hours viewed and stayed on the top 10 for four weeks in total. 

Ranked by the number of hours viewed, Korea’s dominance of the top 10 Asian series across the first half of this year was broken only by Chinese streamer iQiyi’s 40-episode period drama, “Pursuit of Jade”, which Netflix released on 6 March. 

Based on the web novel, “Pursuit of Jade” is about a butcher’s daughter and a fallen nobleman hiding his identity. When their marriage of convenience blossoms into true love, they are pulled into a web of political conspiracies, warfare and ultimately a quest for justice.

28 of the 50 titles that appeared on the top 10 rankings during the 26 weeks were from Korea. Japan had 11, India five, Thailand two (legal drama “The Evil Lawyer” and “Girl From Nowhere The Reset” Season 1), China two, Taiwan one (“Agent From Above” Season 1) and Indonesia one (“Made with Love” Season 1). The first Japanese title on the list – biographical drama “Straight to Hell” Season 1 about the life of controversial Japanese fortune teller Kazuko Hosoki – is at #17. This is followed at #18 by anime series, “BAKI-DOU: The Invincible Samurai” Season 1. 

▶ Published in ContentAsia's August 2026 Magazine