Netflix users in Uganda who have been utilizing the company’s password-sharing feature to enjoy content on the streaming platform will soon see some changes. In March 2022, the company announced it’s cracking down on the widespread practice of password sharing between people who don’t live in the same household by prompting them to pay an extra fee for the privilege.
After piloting it’s a password-sharing crackdown in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. Netflix will start to address password sharing in all its remaining countries including Uganda. This was unveiled during Netflix’s second-quarter earnings report posted on Wednesday, the streamer says it saw an increase of 5.9 million subscribers globally, with the US and Canada making up 1.17 million new members from April to June.
In an email to subscribers, the company is asking users to “Check who’s using your Netflix” They advise users to Review which devices are signed in to their account. Sign out of devices that shouldn’t have access and consider changing your password. If someone outside of your household is using your account, the company advises them to Transfer their profile. Once enabled, other people using your account will be able to transfer a profile to their own membership.
If you have several people using your Netflix account, you will soon receive an alert in your email telling you that have to pay an extra $8 per month. Last month, data from the analytics company Antenna suggests that the company saw a dramatic spike in subscribers in the days following the crackdown.
The streamer says revenue is now “higher” in each of the countries where the password-sharing crackdown was rolled-out, adding that signups are already outnumbering cancellations. The release noted Netflix is “seeing the healthy conversion of borrower households into full paying Netflix memberships” as well as more users adding extra members to their accounts.
Excluding URA taxes, Netflix’s new password-sharing policies will ask Ugandan subscribers to pay an extra $7.99 per month to share their account with up to two people who live outside their household. Netflix’s chief financial officer Spencer Neumann said during the financial call that most of the company’s revenue growth this year is going to come from those new paid memberships, “largely driven” by the streamer’s password-sharing rollout.
