Netflix lost subscribers in South Korea, records show 30% drop in a year

Netflix, the streaming media company, weighs up the aftereffects of the pandemic and saw it now faces a new big challenge in the over-the-top (OTT) market. In South Korea, since the start of the recovery from COVID-19, the company's number of users has declined by more than 30% in the past year.

The Korea Economic Daily reported that Byun Jae Il, who is a member of the Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communications Committee of the National Assembly, said earlier this week that based on a report forwarded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Netflix users in the country was 1.17 million as of the last quarter of 2022 and this showed a decrease of 30.5% compared to the previous year in the same period.

Other major brands, the top five in the region in terms of internet traffic, also saw a big decline in the number of users, and this was said to be a consequence of the pandemic as well. It was mentioned that Google's users fell by 8.3% to 47.23 million, while both Naver and Kakao lost 33.06 million or 18% and 31.78 million (21.7%), respectively. For Meta, its users dropped by 30.5% to 4.7 million in Q4 of 2022.

In March this year, it was reported that half of Netflix users in Korea said they would drop service if the company banned account sharing. This declaration comes after the streaming service provider started a crackdown on account sharing in many countries.

In response, Korean Netflix subscribers said they would just give up their subscriptions if the password-sharing ban is implemented. Currently, users in the country who have opted for the Basic plan are allowed to add up to four sub-accounts, provided that the users do not stream content at the same time.

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