Netflix Loses Subscribers for the First Time in 10 Years, Blames Account Sharing

Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade in Q1 2022, according to subscriber numbers the company said during today's earnings results. Netflix is down more than 200,000 subscribers, and the losses are set to continue.

netflix2
Netflix was expecting to add 2.5 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2022, but did not hit that target. The suspension of its business in Russia cost it 700,000 subscribers, and without that loss, Netflix would have added 500,000 paid global users, which is still well below its projections.

In the United States and Canada, Netflix lost 600,000 customers, due to recent pricing changes. Netflix said this subscriber loss was anticipated and in line with expectations.

In a letter to shareholders [PDF], Netflix said that revenue growth has "slowed considerably," with the company faulting "a large number of households sharing accounts" and "competition" as reasons for the drop off. Netflix estimates that its 222 million paying households are sharing with an additional 100 million households that are not being monetized.

Going forward, Netflix said that it plans to implement "more effective monetization of multi-household sharing," which suggests that Netflix will soon enact measures to prevent account sharing. Netflix in March began testing an extra payment for those who share their Netflix accounts with people outside their households.

In Netflix's current test markets of Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, customers can pay an extra fee to share their accounts with two people outside of their household. When the test was launched, Netflix said that it was working to "understand the utility of these two features" before making changes in other countries.

Netflix has always included wording in its terms and services that prevents account usage across multiple households, but until now, the service has ignored password sharing. Netflix also recently enacted new price hikes, and a 4K streaming plan is priced at $20 per month.

It's worth noting that Netflix is the only streaming service that charges by streaming quality. In the U.S., Netflix charges $9.99 for the Basic no-HD plan that allows for streaming on a single device, $15.49 for a Standard HD plan that allows for two people to watch at the same time, and $19.99 for a Premium plan with Ultra HD streaming and support for four simultaneous viewers.

In the second quarter of 2022, Netflix is anticipating losing two million paid subscribers. To mitigate the continued losses, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said that in addition to addressing password sharing, the company is considering a more affordable, ad-supported plan within a year or two.

Tag: Netflix

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Rumored to Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update. Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far. Redesigned Camera App A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19. On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
iOS 18

Apple Says iOS 18.4 Will Be Released in April With These New Features

Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April. From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Generic iPhone 17 Feature With Full Width Dynamic Island

Latest iPhone 17 Series CAD Images in Line With Redesign Rumors

Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now. Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
apple intelligence black

These New Apple Intelligence Features Are Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April. Priority Notifications Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
iphone 16e usb c feature

Apple Provides Reason for iPhone 16e's Lack of MagSafe

Friday February 28, 2025 4:39 am PST by
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone. According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
Apple MacBook Air 2 up hero 240304 feature

New MacBook Air Announcement Reportedly 'Imminent' — Here's When

Sunday March 2, 2025 5:40 am PST by
With the iPhone 16e now in the hands of customers, Apple reportedly plans to move on to its next product announcement in the coming days. Apple plans to announce new MacBook Air models with the M4 chip "as early as this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. "I expect the M4 MacBook Air to be introduced as early as this week," said Gurman, in a post shared on X today. "Inventory has ...
Apple AirPort Routers

Apple's Discontinued Line of AirPort Wi-Fi Routers Could Return in an Unexpected Way

Saturday March 1, 2025 10:00 am PST by
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Apple offered a line of Wi-Fi routers that it referred to as AirPort base stations. There was a standard AirPort Express, a higher-end AirPort Extreme with more advanced networking features, and an AirPort Time Capsule that doubled as an external storage drive for backing up a Mac with Time Machine. Apple discontinued the AirPort line in 2018, but the company...
apple c1

How Fast is Apple's First-Ever 5G Modem? The Results Are Surprising

Friday February 28, 2025 10:08 am PST by
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected. While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...
airpods pro purple

Here's When AirPods Pro 3 Are Rumored to Launch

Monday February 24, 2025 9:14 am PST by
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year. The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time. Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...

Top Rated Comments

stellaclose Avatar
38 months ago
So the recent price hike had nothing to do with it...it was all the password sharing. Yeah, right.
Score: 195 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dan Holmstock Avatar
38 months ago
No couldn't be the price increases and crappy content right? nah, it's just the sharers.
Score: 145 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonnyb098 Avatar
38 months ago
Maybe if they stop raising the price constantly people would stop account sharing, just a thought.…
Score: 108 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Xenomorph Avatar
38 months ago
Well, I blame the subscriber losses on not having content people want while increasing the price like CRAZY.
Score: 82 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sorgo † Avatar
38 months ago
Awesome!! Keep sharing those accounts, everyone :)
Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CthuluLemon Avatar
38 months ago
Account sharing has been a problem since Netflix started, it’s not suddenly causing them issues; Netflix doesn’t want to admit they have more competition and they’ve continued to raise prices despite the value of their service going down in a competitive market. If a higher percentage of users are account sharing, it’s almost certainly a by-product of the unjustifiable price increases despite a lack of quality content. People aren’t willing to pay an arm and a leg to a company that uses 90% of subscriber fees to produce crap nobody wants to watch.
Score: 42 Votes (Like | Disagree)