Less than one in 10 Netflix homes globally log in using another’s password, according to a new report from Ampere Analysis.
Instead there appears to be a global trend across different markets geographically when it comes to Netflix homes using another person’s account.
Account sharing by Netflix users is higher than with other SVoD services such as Amazon Prime, although the retail element of this platform potentially explains the difference.
The report found that less than one in 10 Netflix homes log in using another person’s password, which amounts to nine per cent of revenue that can be considered a marketing and subscriber acquisition cost. However, this nine per cent also represents a potential revenue gain that can be harnessed in a crackdown on shared accounts.
The lowest amount of sharing is in the USA, Netflix’s domestic and biggest market. On the other hand, France has the highest per cent of shared use but has the lowest level of Netflix uptake, pointing to a potential correlation of established markets having less shared use.
Countries with usually high rates of piracy such as Brazil and Spain have some of the lowest amount of Netflix sharing. Ampere’s data suggests that users are more likely to not share when they have paid for something themselves.
Guy Bisson, research director at Ampere Analysis, said: “There is a widely-held belief that password sharing among Netflix homes is rife, but our data is telling a different story. Moving forward, it looks as if password sharing is a fact of life for SVoD players, with Amazon too suffering from account sharing for its Prime Video service.
“One of the most striking things about account sharing on Netflix is that it’s amazingly consistent across markets,” Bisson added. “What this 9 per cent grey area means to an optimist is that Netflix has a potential revenue gain that can be switched on at will by locking down account sharing, but it’s more likely to be seen as an additional — and likely very effective — marketing and subscriber acquisition cost.”
