It's official: Disney Plus' password crackdown will begin in June – but you might not be affected by the initial rollout.
Speaking on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that Disney Plus subscribers won't be able to share their account with anyone who lives in a separate household from mid-2024 onwards. This is a slight change on the last information we received regarding Disney Plus' password crackdown, with Disney previously suggesting (on February 7) that its anti-password sharing rules would take effect in early 2024.
However, like Netflix, which introduced its own account sharing crackdown in May 2023 – read our Netflix password sharing hub for more details – Disney won't roll out its plan worldwide in June. Indeed, Iger revealed that it would be introduced in select nations in less than two months (at the time of writing) before it expands globally in late 2024.
"Password sharing is [on the way]," he said. "In June, we'll be launching our first real foray into password sharing in just a few markets, but then it will grow significantly with a full rollout in September."
It's unclear which countries will be hit first by Disney Plus' password clampdown. If history is any indication, I'd expect Canada, Spain, and some Latin American nations – the first places that Netflix's account sharing crackdown was introduced in early 2023 – to be similarly hit by Disney with its initial password crackdown rollout. For more details when we have them, keep an eye on our Disney Plus password sharing hub.
Disney Plus' account sharing crackdown explained
So, why is Disney Plus joining Netflix on the password sharing ban train? In short, it's all to do with the company's finances. It's common knowledge that Disney has been hemorrhaging money recently – indeed, as revealed in investor calls and quarterly earnings reports over the last few years, Disney has *ahem* felt the cost of wading into the rapidly expanding streaming sector.
It's a major reason why Iger, who retired in December 2021, returned to steady the ship less than a year after he was succeeded by Bob Chapek. As Iger noted in his most recent CNBC interview: "The losses were $4 billion a year – clearly, that was not sustainable or acceptable". Since his return, Disney has turned its financial fortunes around, posting a much smaller loss of £137 million in the three-month period between November 2023 and February 2024. Iger suggests Disney will be profitable once more by the year's end, too.
What does all of this have to do with Disney Plus' password crackdown? As Netflix has already shown, preventing people from sharing their accounts between households drives subscriber growth. As of January 2024, Netflix's has 260.28 million users – over 22 million more than it had six months earlier. That uptick in new users is down to its account sharing ban, whose rollout initially led to a downturn in users. Indeed, Netflix's password crackdown got off to a terrible start as fans cancelled their subscriptions to try to demonstrate that the world's best streaming service was wrong to roll out such a plan.
Netflix's confidence that users would return, though, wasn't misguided. Netflix's password crackdown began working just one month after the scheme's rollout. Four weeks later, Netflix's password clampdown continued to be successful as its subscriber base continued to grow. That, in turn, led to a spike in revenue, which bolstered its profit margins.
With one of its biggest entertainment rivals benefitting from its own account sharing clampdown scheme, it was inevitable that Disney would introduce its own plan for its two streaming platforms. That's right, Disney Plus isn't the only Disney-owned service that'll stop users from sharing accounts between households – Hulu is also set to join Netflix and Disney Plus in cracking down on password sharing.
If you've been waiting to stream some of the best Disney Plus shows and best Disney Plus movies, my advice would be to start working your way through your back catalog right away. June's really not that far away and, even if you're given a stay of execution and don't get hit by the crackdown until September, we're already a quarter of the way through 2024, so September will be here before you know it. Stream those Marvel and Star Wars projects you've been putting off ASAP, then.
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- Or read our Disney Plus review to see if it's worth subscribing to
