Netflix is seeing a record number of new subscribers even after it launched its crackdown on password-sharing.
Between May 25 and May 28, the streaming giant garnered more new subscriptions than in any other four-day period since streaming analytics company Antenna began compiling such data in 2019, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
Netflix officially began the password-sharing ban May 23.
“Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with — your household,” Netflix said in the email to members, according to a press release at the time. “You can easily watch Netflix on the go and when you travel — either on your personal devices or a TV at a hotel or vacation home.”
In the email, Netflix also explained how to control which devices are using an account and how to share Netflix with someone outside the household — by transferring a profile to a new membership that they pay for or by buying an extra member for an existing account.
Password sharing has been a difficult issue for Netflix for over a decade, but it used to just grow its way through that and other problems. The company now has a different view, however.
Netflix has been dealing with this challenge at a time when 60% of retail subscribers admit to cheating to gain extra benefits from subscription services, according to the “Subscription Commerce Conversion Index: The Challenge of Cheaters,” a PYMNTS and sticky.io collaboration.
As it looked to find a balance between its long history of customer centricity and its need as a business to get paid, Netflix developed the offers of profile transfer and paid account sharing.
Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters said during an April earnings call that those who have been account “borrowers” in the past and have watched a great deal of Netflix content are likely to convert to the new paid account sharing.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More