Disney+ says it is "actively exploring" plans to address account sharing and it already has the "technical capability" to do so.
During a Disney earnings call on Wednesday (US time), company CEO Bob Iger said the company will update its terms and services to address the sharing of passwords at "some point in 2024."
"We are actively exploring ways to address account sharing, and the best options for paying subscribers to share their accounts with friends and family," Iger said during the call.
"Later this year, we will begin to update our subscriber agreements with additional terms and our sharing policies, and we will roll out tactics to drive monetization sometime in 2024," Comicbook.com reported him as saying.
No further details of how the company would look to prevent password sharing, or whether it would offer subscribers the chance to pay to share accounts like Netflix does, were revealed.
"We already have the technical capability to monitor much of this (password sharing). And I am not going to give you a specific number except to say that it's significant," Iger said.
"But we don't know of course, is as we get to work on this, how much of the password sharing, as we basically eliminate it, will convert to growth in subs.
"Obviously, we believe there will be some but we're not speculating. What we are saying though, is that in calendar '24, we're going to get at this issue. And so while it is likely you'll see some impact in calendar '24.
"It's possible that we won't be completed or the work will not be completed within the calendar year, but we certainly have established this as a real priority, and we actually think that there's an opportunity here to help us grow our business."
On the call, Disney+ also confirmed an increase in prices in its US subscription options. There's been no clarity yet as to whether those price increases will be adopted in New Zealand, but Newshub has contacted Disney+ for clarification.
The increases will raise the monthly cost of ad-free Disney+ by US$3 (NZ$4.95) to almost US$14 (NZ$23.10).
Iger also said there had been a continued loss in domestic subscribers in the US and Canada for a third straight quarter of declines.
In February this year, Netflix announced it was cracking down on account sharing in New Zealand, saying at the time in a social media post that a Netflix account "is intended for one household".
The company claimed it had seen an increase in the number of subscribers globally since the crackdown was enforced, with around five million new people signing up.
