25% of SVOD Users Borrow Accounts From Others Outside Home: Report

Of the 215 million American adults who use streaming video subscription services, 25% are using account logins from people who don’t live under their roof, said a Monday Cordcutting.com report. The average “moocher,” defined as someone who uses the account of someone in another household without paying for it, borrows logins for 1.6 accounts, resulting in almost 86 million accounts that aren’t paid for, it said. Streaming platforms are missing out on an estimated $2.3 billion in subscription feeds from those who don’t use their own accounts but would pay for one if they had to, it said. The most borrowed accounts this year are HBO Max and Disney+ at 16% of streamers. Peacock and Paramount+, the newest platforms in the Cordcutting.com analysis, are being borrowed as much as Amazon Prime, it said. Nine in 10 U.S. adults use streaming services, about steady from the 2021 analysis. Some 92% of streamers use Netflix, followed by Amazon Prime at 76%, Hulu (66%), Disney+ (54%), HBO Max (45%), Peacock (36%) and Paramount+ (29%). About 11% of Netflix streamers borrowed other accounts, down from 14% last year, after Netflix began sending security messages about account sharing outside the home, said Cordcutter. Cost is a top reason for sharing logins, it said, saying the cheapest tiers of the seven services included in the study have a combined monthly fee of $54. The 2022 survey was fielded among 790 U.S. adults.