In a first look at the impact of the Netflix streamer’s new policy, analytics firm Antenna said today that Netflix sign-ups have increased recently as the company prepares to crack down on password sharing.
According to Antenna, the streaming service experienced its four greatest days of customer acquisition in the four and a half years since the business initially warned U.S. subscribers via email on May 23 that it would begin to curtail password sharing. The most recent statistics suggest that on both May 26 and May 27, Netflix attracted close to 100,000 new subscribers.
More than 100 million households around the world are thought to have a joint account, according to prior estimates.
The website informed its US customers last month that if they disclose their passwords with anybody outside of their family, they will be charged an extra $7.99 per month, or they will have to create a new account. In addition, it has plans to lock off anyone using an invalid password.
In numerous countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain, the firm has begun cracking down on the practice of exchanging passwords at the beginning of this year.
While this is an increase of roughly 5% year over year, and well behind the more than 3 million Wall Street analysts had predicted, Netflix just reported a net growth of 1.75 million global streaming members in the first quarter.
The change, which Netflix will implement globally, was announced last year, when the company’s subscriber growth was slowing. Profits in the billions of dollars are at stake, and the crackdown has been good for Netflix stock, which has been performing very well compared to its peers in the media industry. The stock market is up 2.5% today.
