Netflix: number of subscribers grows due to actions against account sharing

Netflix’s subscriber base is growing due to the company’s actions against account sharing, Netflix says. In Canada, the number of subscribers is now higher than when the company began banning account sharing outside of one’s household.

When taking this step, some subscribers cancel first, it appears a letter to shareholders. “We saw a wave of cancellations when we announced the news, impacting short-term growth. But as account sharers activate their own accounts and existing subscribers add ‘additional member’ accounts to their account, we see an increase in In Canada, for example, our customer base is larger than before this step.”

In recent months, Netflix has tried for the first time to stop sharing accounts outside its own household. Instead, customers can add an extra account for a fee, which costs slightly less than if a person took out their own subscription. In Portugal it is 3.99 euros per month, in Spain 5.99 euros.

The company also says that the lower-cost plans are ad-supported in terms of revenue. Subscription revenue plus advertising revenue is higher per customer than revenue from paying customers with an ad-free subscription.

Netflix also announces that it will stop lending DVDs by mail. That was the service for which Netflix was founded in the late 1990s. It wasn’t until years later that it became a streaming service.