It’s difficult to gauge just how much password sharing impacts revenue for streaming services but new survey data might at least show who’s getting hit the hardest.
New data from Kagan Consumer Insights—based on responses from 2,626 U.S. adults—suggests that 11% of users of both Netflix and Disney+ indicated that they use a shared login for accessing the services. Hulu followed at around 8% while HBO Max showed about 7% of viewers using shared credentials and Amazon Prime Video had about 5%.
According to Kagan’s data, the password sharing issue has hovered around 10% for the past few years and that most of the heaviest usage still comes from paying customers.
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“Additional survey data suggests that Netflix login sharers are also generally less avid SVOD consumers overall compared to both Netflix users excluding login sharers and total survey respondents. Login sharers used an average of 3.9 total SVOD services versus nearly 5 services for total respondents and Netflix users minus sharers. Login sharers were also much more likely to turn to SVOD services on a weekly or monthly basis than the more frequent daily/several times per week usage demonstrated by total and non-sharing respondents,” wrote Seth Shafer, senior research analyst for Kagan, in a research note.
Strategies vary on how many simultaneous streams to offer with accounts. Apple TV+ leads the industry with six simultaneous streaming while Netflix’s Basic tier only offers one.
“Netflix's strategy to date to mitigate the financial impact of password sharing has been to avoid hard crackdowns and to instead peg additional simultaneous stream availability to higher-priced subscription tiers. While its Standard ($13.99/month) and Premium ($17.99/month) tiers do offer extra features related to downloads and HD/UHD content availability, a key difference from the $8.99/month Basic tier is access to two simultaneous streams for Standard subscribers and four simultaneous streams for Premium members,” wrote Shafer.