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Published 20 Jul, 2023 11:56am

Netflix earns 6 million subscribers following ‘password-sharing crackdown’

Netflix added 5.9 million new subscribers in the past three months - nearly triple what analysts expected - after acting against password-sharing practices between households.

The streaming giant is the first of the major technology and media companies to report its latest quarterly results, the British Daily Guardian reported.

Analysts expected Netflix to add about 2 million new homes in the past three months as people who had been sharing the service for free decided to pay from their accounts reflecting how much it is popular worldwide.

Netflix currently has 238 million subscribers across the globe.

The report comes in the wake of writers’ and actors’ strikes hitting the industry - the first time both unions have split since the 1960s.

Analysts fear that the strike and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will have a major impact on the industry in the coming months, halting new seasons of global hits including streaming shows House of the Dragon and the last of US films such as Gladiator 2 and Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two, the report added.

“This strike is not the result we wanted,” Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said. He said the company hoped to reach an agreement “as soon as possible”.

The report also stated that some analysts have argued that Netflix has a better chance of surviving the strike than its traditional media counterparts.

Last year the company lost subscribers for the first time in its history. Since then, it has started to take back subscribers and earlier this year announced the removal of password sharing.

According to the company, Netflix claimed that more than 100 million households had participated in password sharing before they came into action to act against them.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank this week predicted the increase in ‘pay-as-you-go’ will boost Netflix’s revenue through 2023, with the company also benefiting from programming retention, international audiences and the ability to produce overseas hits like Squid Game and Money Heist.

Netflix also moved to expand its revenue stream by introducing an ad-supported subscription after last year. The report, while quoting the company, said it was dropping its cheapest commercial-free monthly plan in the US and the UK, in a push to get more sign-ups for its ad-supported option.

The plan cost $9.99 in the US and £6.99 in the UK and limited subscribers to streaming HD content on only one device at a time.

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