As part of its initiative to crack down on password sharing and generate more income, Netflix will soon begin trialling an “add a home” feature for customers across five Latin American countries.
From next month subscribers in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic will need to pay an additional cost to use their account away from their primary residence for longer than two weeks; however mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets and laptops will not be affected.
A new "manage homes" tab in "account settings" will let users control where their account is being used – and remove homes at any time.
In March 2022, Netflix launched a similar “add extra member” feature in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, charging subscribers $2.99 to add one extra user to their account, with Standard and Premium customers able to add up to two.
In a blog post about the new charges, Netflix's Director of Product Innovation Chengyi Long wrote that the company was taking measures because "today’s widespread account sharing between households undermines our long term ability to invest in and improve our service".
Earlier this year, Netflix reported significant subscriber losses for the first time in a decade, with a global net loss of 200,000 paid users in April. When the company disclosed that it was braced to lose a further two million subscribers before July, its shares dropped by more than 25 per cent, wiping more than £23bn /$30bn / AU$40.3bn off its market value, rising to around £56.5bn / $70bn / AU$99.8bn since.
While the company might not be in the rudest of health, it's still emphatically the market leader when it comes to video on demand, with around 220 million subscribers globally.
