Account lockout worked. Netflix gained 6 million new users. “Removal was low”

Netflix has just published its financial results for the second fiscal quarter of 2023 – this is the company’s first published report after the popular streaming service introduced a ban on account sharing in May 2023 for people who do not live in the same household.

If you were hoping that Netflix’s move would result in an outflow of users from the service, which in turn would lead to the withdrawal of previously made decisions, you may be disappointed. So far, Netflix has gained on the block. And that’s quite a lot.

In the last quarter, the number of subscribers increased by 5.89 million (to 238.39 million), and the company’s revenues increased by 2.7 percent (up to USD 8.19 billion). It is worth recalling that in the same period last year, Netflix lost almost a million users.

Netflix – financial results for Q3 2023 photo Netflix

Importantly, Netflix gained users in all regions. in the USA and Canada, their number increased by 1.17 million to 75.57, in South and Central America – by 1.22 million to 42.27 million, in Europe, Africa and the Middle East – by 2.43 million to 79.81 million, in Asia and the Pacific – by 1.07 million to 40.55 million.

During a meeting with investors, Spence Neumann, Netflix’s chief financial officer, admitted that the company’s revenue growth “was largely driven by the paid sharing feature.” It is about the possibility introduced by the service to “buy” space for another user in the case of an existing account. In Poland, such an additional slot costs PLN 9.99 per month.

This is our main revenue driver this year and we expect it to continue to be so for the next few quarters

– noted Spence Neumann.

In a press release, Netflix also referred to the alleged boycott, which was supposed to be the result of changes to the service. “The scale of deleting accounts has been low. And while we are still in the early stages of monetization, we are seeing a healthy conversion of households ‘borrowing’ someone else’s accounts to their own full-paid subscriptions, as well as using the account sharing surcharge feature,” the company emphasizes. It is therefore not surprising that, starting from Wednesday, the account sharing lock function has been extended to other countries (including Croatia, India, Indonesia, Kenya and Croatia) and now covers almost all markets where the platform operates.

UOKiK will take Netflix? Poles complained about the ban on sharing accounts

In Poland, the blocking of account sharing was introduced in May this year. Currently, Netflix only allows you to share your account with people you actually live with, or requires you to pay an additional fee (PLN 9.99/month) for each family member or friend who lives at a different address.

It turns out that Poles did not like the fact that Netflix enforced the regulations so much, UOKiK received “few complaints” against Netflix from consumers. Two of them concern the ban on account sharing. This fact was confirmed by Małgorzata Cieloch, spokeswoman for the office. She declared that both complaints would first be thoroughly analyzed by UOKiK. If it turns out that Netflix actually violated Polish regulations, the office may call on the company to change its policy or impose a fine of up to 10% of its gross revenue. annual turnover.