Netflix password crackdown fuels sign-up surge

That was the most for any quarter since 2020, extending a streak of growth that started last year.

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’.”

Many of its new members opted for the company’s cheapest plan, undeterred by the prospect of seeing advertisements.

Netflix said in the 12 countries where it offers adverts – which include some of its biggest markets such as the UK and US – the plan accounted for 40% of the new sign-ups.

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.

But the company was jolted by an unexpected subscriber decline in the first half of 2022, followed by a fall in profits, which 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.