Sharing streaming account log-ins: how do consumer views across APAC differ?

In late April, Netflix announced its first net loss in subscribers in over a decade – after some 200,000 customers ended their subscriptions during the first quarter of 2022.

The streaming giant raised password sharing as one of the reasons for this, and plans to ask subscribers who share their accounts with people outside of their households to pay more.

But what do consumers in APAC feel about sharing login details for streaming services?

Sharing of streaming accounts: how views differ across APAC markets

Latest data from YouGov Global Profiles – the world's largest globally consistent audience dataset – reveals that consumers in India, Thailand and Vietnam are most likely out of 12 major APAC markets to say it is ok to share their video/music streaming service login details with anyone they want to.

Over two-fifths (41%) of Indian consumers think it is acceptable to share streaming service credentials, while more than a third of Thai (36%) and Vietnamese (34%) consumers also say it is ok to share their video/music streaming accounts.

Additionally, well over a quarter (30%) of consumers in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia agree with sharing their streaming subscription, as do more than two in five consumers in Australia (24%), Taiwan (23%), Singapore (22%), China (21%). Meanwhile, the APAC consumers least likely to be fine with sharing their streaming accounts with others reside in Hong Kong (18%) and Japan (10%).

Conversely, more than half of consumers in Japan (55%), Hong Kong (53%) and Australia (52%) think it is not ok to share their video/music streaming service login details, as do 47% of Singapore’s consumers.

Of note, close to half of consumers in China (48%), Thailand (47%) and Taiwan (45%) are on the fence about sharing their video/music streaming subscriptions, as well as over a third of consumers in Vietnam (40%), Japan (36%) and the Philippines (34%).

Age differences towards streaming account sharing in APAC

Among consumers in APAC aged 18-44 years, about three in ten (29-30%) think it is acceptable to share their streaming accounts, while another three in ten (30-31%) disagree, with the remaining two-fifths (39-40%) currently neutral.

The same is more or less true for 45-54-year-olds. Close to three in ten (28%) agree, although more think streaming account sharing is not acceptable (36%) and less are neutral about this (36%).

But consumers aged 55 years or older are much less likely to be fine with sharing streaming subscriptions – just under one in five (19%) are – while almost half (48%) disagree with this practice.

Group subscriptions for streaming accounts: how views differ across APAC markets

Consumers in India are also more likely than any other major APAC market to think that video and music streaming services should offer more group subscriptions – over three in five (62%) say so – as do more than half of consumers in Vietnam (57%), Philippines (56%), Malaysia (57%), Singapore (57%) and Indonesia (54%).

However, just two in five in China (41%) and one in six in Japan (16%) would like to see more group subscription options for streaming services.

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Methodology: YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 43 major markets, continuously collected from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. Sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is 1000. Data for each market uses a nationally representative sample, apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.