WASHINGTON—Streaming has seen an increase in both consumption and new subscribers, but as a new report from The Manifest highlights, possible revenue from these increases is being lost because 37% of subscribers are sharing accounts with people they do not live with.
According to Manifest’s survey of 401 people in the U.S., 25% of streaming subscribers share their account with family members not in their home; 10% do so with close friends/partners; and 2% share with acquaintances/strangers. When including people within the same household, the amount of streaming subscribers sharing accounts comes to 74%.
Netflix is one of the streaming services that allows for multiple accounts to be setup per subscription. However, Netflix’s terms and conditions state that subscribers should not share their account with people outside of their household.
Reports indicated that Netflix added 16 million subscribers in Q1 2020, influenced by the coronavirus pandemic and mandates for people to shelter at home. Manifest estimates that those numbers, and the revenue from it, would have been even higher if password sharing was less.
Even so, Netflix is the most popular paid streaming service, with 75% of respondents saying they pay for it. Amazon Prime Video (56%) and Hulu (40%) are the next most popular.
Also part of Manifest’s study was how the use of streaming has increased during COVID-19. The report indicates that 47% of streaming subscribers have increased their time on streaming platforms in the last 30 days; 36% say it has stayed the same, 5% say it is less.
The full Manifest report is available online.
