Netflix is bringing its password-sharing restrictions to India. Starting Thursday, the popular streaming platform began sending out emails to subscribers sharing the service with people outside their households in the country.
In a statement published on its official site, the platform said that a Netflix account is “for use by one household.” Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are —at home or outside. In the emails that Netflix is sending to the subscribers, people have been asked to check who is using their account and for devices that shouldn’t have access to sign out.
There is also an option to transfer profiles to anyone outside the household which will initiate a new membership. In May, in more than 100 countries, Netflix started charging people if they continued to share their passwords with people who they weren't living with. Although they received backlash from users, it was an important plan to boost their revenue growth which saw a big slump last year. Viewers using another person’s subscription had to either pay to continue sharing or set up their account, according to Bloomberg.
Netflix had expected to see an increase in cancellations after the introduction of the crackdown on password sharing and see growth this year. In recent weeks, third-party data showed that Netflix has been seeing a surge in customer sign-ups. The company finished the third quarter with 238.4 million members, an increase of 8% from a year ago, as reported by Bloomberg. It also added 5.89 million customers in the second quarter of this year.
On Wednesday. Netflix ended its lowest-priced ad-free plan. Now, consumers can opt for a lower-priced, ad-backed service or a costlier commercial-free plan. Earlier Netflix had said it didn’t care if people used someone else’s account. However, when it lost a big chunk of customers in 2022, leading to a drop in shares and revenue, it introduced new plans to accelerate growth including ad-backed service and put an end to password-sharing.
Currently, Netflix is facing stiff competition in the Indian market with Amazon Prime, Disney+Hotstar and more recently, JioCinema, which is backed by James Murdoch and Mukesh Ambani.
