Netflix sign-ups boomed at the end of last year as customers prodded by the firm’s crackdown on password-sharing created their accounts.
Netflix’s crackdown on password-sharing led to a surge in sign-ups at the end of last year, with the streaming giant adding more than 13.1 million subscriptions in the three months ended in December, the most for any quarter since 2020. Netflix said it was confident in its growth path and was planning to raise prices. “We largely put price increases on hold as we rolled out paid sharing. Now that we’re through that, we’re able to resume our standard approach,” co-chief executive Greg Peters said on a call with analysts to discuss its latest quarterly update. “The summary statement might be, ‘back to business as usual’”/
Netflix’s cheapest plan, which includes advertisements, accounted for 40% of the new sign-ups in the 12 countries where it is offered, including some of its biggest markets such as the UK and US 1. The gains are an ironic twist for a firm that resisted calls to sell ads for years, saying such a move would hurt the viewer experience and complicate its business with privacy risks and other issues 1.
Netflix’s unexpected subscriber decline in the first half of 2022, followed by a fall in profits, prompted it to seek out new ways to bring in new viewers and more money. As well as adverts and the password crackdown, it is experimenting with more live events to bring in new audiences. On Tuesday, it announced a 10-year, $5bn (£3.9bn) deal to bring WWE Raw – pro-wrestling’s most popular weekly show – to the platform 1. Many of its rivals are making similar moves. Amazon, for example, is trying to boost its slate of live sports events. It is also due to start showing adverts to Prime members when they watch starting this month, unless they pay $2.99 extra per month 1.
