Netflix has a problem with subscribers in Italy

Last month Netflix announced for the first time in a decade that it had lost subscribers, some 200,000 since the beginning of the year. Among the reasons responsible for the sudden decline, the streaming service identified account sharing as a major cause, a natural reaction to the now almost uncontrolled increase in services to subscribe to. Between Prime Video, Disney+ and NOWTV, using someone else's account has become a survival practice in an effort to reduce the monthly costs of entertainment services. While Netflix has already announced plans to curb account sharing, between price increases and the introduction of advertising within its content, time2play mapped the state of Netflix subscriptions in Italy, trying to imagine the future of its 4.6 million subscribers by asking users directly how many people they share access with.

The regions with the highest percentage of shared accounts are Valle d'Aosta (95%), Basilicata (95%), Liguria (94%), Puglia (90%) and Umbria (90%), while in Molise only 33% of the population said they use a friend or relative's account to watch Netflix. The overall picture, however, is one of widespread practice across the country, with percentages ranging from 70% to 95%, in an Italy that not only shares accounts with relatives, but also with friends, a practice that is not allowed. According to Netflix's regulations, in fact, sharing would be allowed only with members of the same household. A figure that becomes even more interesting when compared with the United States, where the average number of account sharers does not exceed 59 percent in Ohio, reaching 23% in Utah. Also in Italy, of the 1067 people surveyed, only 46% said they pay for their own subscription, while the remainder said they use the accounts of friends and relatives, benefactors who largely share their Netflix profiles without asking for anything in return. Only 33.2 percent split the monthly subscription amount, while 66.8 percent said they pay for their own account, shared with friends and relatives "freeloading."

But what would happen if Netflix really decided to block the ability to share accounts? 71.2 percent of respondents would stop paying the monthly subscription, a fact that the streaming service should definitely take into consideration. Another hot spot is that of the price, which is now constantly rising with annual price increases and which, according to the streamers surveyed, should not exceed €16.87 per month, a ceiling beyond which they would choose to give up their subscription. A set of data that should give Netflix, to date among the most expensive streaming services and with the quality of its content in sharp decline, pause for thought. With the arrival of new competitors capable of offering content-rich libraries at competitive prices, Netflix's next moves will have to be well thought out in order not to risk further aggravating an already partly compromised situation.