Netflix puts an end to password sharing in India, restricts one account to one household

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

streaming service Netflix said it has started cracking down on password sharing in India, along with other markets including Kenya, Indonesia and Croatia. Subscribers from only a single household would be able to access an account. This comes after Netflix in May, started rolling out a ban on password sharing worldwide.

The company, however, will not offer the ‘extra member’ option in these countries as it has recently cut prices in many of them. The feature allows subscribers to add an additional member to their account by paying extra. The users who are part of ‘Netflix Household’, meaning the ones who are using the same internet connection, will be allowed to access the account.

“Beginning today, we’ll start to address account sharing between households in almost all of our remaining countries. In these markets, we’re not offering an extra member option given that we’ve recently cut prices in a good number of these countries (for example, Indonesia, Croatia, Kenya, and India) and penetration is still relatively low in many of them so we have plenty of runway without creating additional complexity,” the company said in a letter to its shareholders. Netflix said borrowing users will be able to transfer their current profile to new and existing accounts.

The company had launched cheaper plans with ads in November last year before cracking down on password sharing in May this year. The streaming service said the advertising tier is still a very small part of its membership base and the current ad revenue is not material. Netflix’s advertising tier is fairly new to the market, compared to its rival Hulu, which has been supporting ads on the streaming platform for 15 years.