Netflixโs idea of restricting password sharing in the US has actually worked, with the latest report from an analytics firm depicting how successful this move was.
According to Antenna, Netflix saw a 102% average gain in new sign-ups in the last week of May โ after banning password sharing in the US. This number is greater than what Netflix has seen during the COVID-19 period.
A Successful Crackdown Campaign
Netflix has long been reluctant on cracking down on password sharing โ even though itโs costing the company significantly. But this all changed last year when the company lost a million subscribers and made some serious decisions to stop further fall in numbers.
One among them is to ban account sharing practices, where Netflix is now asking users to select a primary location โ particularly a household โ and prevent others from the selected area from accessing the certain account. And if people really wanted to share their account with someone outside their household, they should pay more.
This strategy worked, as per an analytics company, Antenna, which shared the latest subscriber data of Netflix in the US. According to its report, Netflixโs average daily sign-ups reached 73,000 per day after the company started cracking down on account sharing.
Thatโs a grand 102% increase from the prior 60-day average, and even included a couple of days having nearly 100,000 daily sign-ups! These numbers beat the companyโs COVID stats too, where people rapidly signed up during the lockdown periods.
NEW on the Antenna Blog: A first look at the impact of Netflixโs pw sharing crackdown. In the first 6 days since they implemented the new policy, Netflix has had the 4 single largest days of US user acquisition in the 4.5 yrs that Antenna has been measuring the streaming service. pic.twitter.com/rDYGxR43Qm
โ Antenna (@AntennaData) June 9, 2023
Though Netflix saw an increase in subscription cancellations, itโs negligible when compared to the number of people signing up during this period. Netflix earlier stated that over 100 million subscribers are sharing their accounts with someone, affecting its ability to โinvest in and improve Netflixโ for the paying members. Thus, the company had to resort to cracking down on this practice.