Netflix implements password sharing restrictions in India

In May, the streaming giant introduced paid sharing in more than 100 countries, accounting for over 80% of the company's revenue.

New Delhi: Streaming giant Netflix on Thursday announced that it has ended password sharing in India and will now alert subscribers who are sharing their accounts outside their homes “Starting today, we will send an email to members who are sharing Netflix outside their household in India,” the company said in a statement.

“A Netflix account is for use by one household. Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are – at home, on the go, on holiday – and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices,” it added.

---

In May, the streaming giant had launched paid sharing in over 100 countries, representing more than 80 per cent of the company’s revenue base.

Revenue in each region is now higher than pre-launch, with sign-ups already exceeding cancellations, according to Netflix.

The company further mentioned that the paid net additions were 5.9 million in the second quarter (Q2) of this year. Also, now the paid sharing is rolling out to almost all of the remaining countries.

In the Q2 2023 earnings report, the company said: “Q2‘23 revenue of $8.2 billion and operating profit of $1.8 billion were generally in-line with our forecast — and we expect revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of 2023 as we start to see the full benefits of paid sharing plus continued steady growth in our ad-supported plan.

“We’re still targeting a full year 2023 operating margin of 18 per cent to 20 per cent.” The report also mentioned that the platform is “seeing healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships as well as the uptake of our extra member feature”.

Moreover, the streaming giant said that it “phased” out the Basic ads-free plan for new and rejoining members in Canada (existing members on the Basic ads-free plan are unaffected) in Q2. Now, it is doing the same in the US and the UK.

“We believe our entry prices in these countries – $6.99 in the US, 4.99 pounds in the UK and $5.99 in Canada — provide great value to consumers given the breadth and quality of our catalogue,” the company explained.

“Most of our revenue growth this year is from growth in volume through new paid memberships, and that’s largely driven by our paid sharing rollout,” said Spencer Adam Neumann, Chief Financial Officer at Netflix.