Interview Questions › Guesstimate

Estimate total annual streaming hours on Netflix in India

Estimate the total number of hours of content streamed annually by all Netflix subscribers in India.

Context

Netflix has grown significantly following mobile-only plan pricing ($2.50/mo) and localized original content investments.

Clarifying questions to ask first

• Are we measuring total watched hours across all household profiles on an account?
• Does this count downloaded offline video viewing as well as live streaming? (Yes, all watched content).

How to approach it

1. Estimate Netflix India paid subscriber base (~10-12 million paying accounts)
2. Account for account sharing and average active viewers per subscription (~2.2 viewers/account)
3. Calculate average daily streaming hours per viewer (Weekday: ~1.2 hrs; Weekend: ~2.5 hrs -> ~1.6 hrs/day average)
4. Multiply: Subscribers × Viewers/Account × Daily Hours × 365 Days

Framework: Annual Streaming Hours = (Subscribers × Active Profiles/Sub) × (Average Daily Hours/Profile) × 365 Days

Sample answer

• Paid Subscribers in India: ~10 Million accounts
• Average active viewers per account: ~2.0 people = 20 Million active viewers
• Average watch time: 1.5 hours per day per viewer
• Total daily hours = 20M × 1.5 = 30 Million hours/day
• Annual hours = 30M × 365 = ~10.95 Billion hours/year

1. 10M paying subs × 2.0 active viewers = 20M viewers
2. 20M viewers × 1.5 hrs/day × 365 days = 10.95 Billion hours/year

Executive estimate: ~11 Billion hours of content streamed annually on Netflix in India (~30M hours daily across ~10M paying subscriber accounts).

What interviewers look for

• Subscriber Base Estimation (~10M)
• Profiles per Account Multiplier
• Daily Watch Time per Active User
• Annualized Aggregation (Billion Hours)