Netflix has hinted it will crack down on households sharing passwords as it seeks to sign up new members following a sharp fall in subscribers.
Some 200,000 people left the streaming service in the first three months of the year as it faced intense competition from rivals.
It was also hit after it raised prices in some countries and left Russia.
Netflix warned shareholders another two million subscribers were likely to leave in the three months to July.
“Our revenue growth has slowed considerably,” the firm told shareholders on Tuesday after publishing its first quarter results.
Our relatively high household penetration – when including the large number of households sharing accounts – combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds.”
Boss Reed Hastings previously described the practice as “something you have to learn to live with”, adding that much of it is “legitimate” between family members. The firm also said account sharing had probably fuelled its growth by getting more people using Netflix.
But on Tuesday Mr Hastings said it was now making it hard to attract new subscribers in some countries.
“When we were growing fast, it wasn’t a high priority to work on [account sharing]. And now we’re working super hard on it,” he told shareholders.
The firm said that measures it is testing to curb password sharing in Latin America could be rolled out to other countries, with accounts that break the rules charged extra.
Lucas Shaw, who writes the Screentime newsletter for Bloomberg news, told the BBC that password sharing had been an issue for Netflix “for a long time” but was by no means its biggest challenge.
Source: BBC
NewsAnnexOnline 