Estimate the cost of storing Google Photos on the photos app.

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Estimate the cost of storing Google Photos on the photos app.

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kuma0177 · Answer 1 · 2020-04-09T19:49:16+0000

Clarifying questions:

Google photos - an app that syncs automatically to your camera app and uploads photos to Google cloud and reduces the need to store it on your device
Cost of 1GB storage $0.002
Time storage cost per year

Equation:

Cost of storage per year = average cost of storing photos per day x 30 days x 12 months

The average cost of storing photos = # of photos uploaded per day x average size of photos x $0.002/GB

# of photos uploaded per day:

Photos from developed world + developing world + underdeveloped world.

Total world population 7B, 50% have access to the internet. → 3.5B.

70% of those users use smartphones with camera and the majority of them are android users. → 2.1B.

Assuming 60% of these are android users → 1.2B Android devices that have Google photos app

Assuming 40% of iPhone users use google photos → ~300M iphone users use Google photos app.

Thus we have about 1.5B total photos app users.

Breaking down the usage of camera and photo upload by the market:

Developed countries - Assuming users take around 10 photos per day on average with high end cameras. Average photo size 4MB.
Developing countries - Assuming users take around 5 photos per day with a medium to high end cameras. Average photo size 4MB
Developing countries - Assuming users take around 2 photos per day with a medium to high end cameras. Average photo size 2MB

% of world in developed world ~ 20%

% of world in developing countries ~ 60%

% of world in developing countries ~ 20%

Assuming the same distribution holds across smartphones too:

Google photos users in developed world ~ 20% → 300M

Google photos users in developing countries ~ 60% → 900M

Google photos users in developing countries ~ 20% → 300M

The total size of photos stored per year:

Developed - (300M x 10 photos/day x 4MB x 30 days x 12 months)--> 4.3 x 10^18 Bytes
Developing - (900M x 5 photos/day x 4MB x 30 days x 12 months) → 6.4 x 10^18 bytes
Under developed - (300M x 2 photos/day x 2MB x 30 days x 12 months) → 0.4x10^18 bytes

Total storage ~12 x 10^18 bytes -->12 x 10^9 GB

Total cost → 12 x 10^9 x $0.02 → $24 x 10^7 → $240M

This would be the cost for just one data center, assuming Google has atleast 5 data centres where this data gets replicated, it will be close to 240M x 5 --> $1.2B!

sanjib.gupta · Answer 2 · 2020-08-14T03:58:22+0000

US only
Storage cost onll

Calculation= Total photo uploaded * average size * cost of string average photo (/year)

US population 300M. Breakdown

0-20= 75M=>10 and above=>75M/2
20-40=75M
40-60=75M
60-80=75M=>below 70=>75M/2

Total =220M

Assumption -> all these people have capability to upload photo by laptop or phone. they have internet or data coverage

Not all of these people will upload photo. May prefer to use their laptop disk/hard disk stoareg to store photos-> 10% are like that

220*90%=>198M~200M

Possible Market segmnet= 200M has the possibility of uploading photo to to cloud storage.

People mostly use phone to take picture. Assumption people with android phone people will use Google product-> google photo.

Moreover, people who don’t have smart phone will probably never have apple laptop (costly). They will have cheap windows laptops and use google to upload the photos as its free.

80% market share is android- so assuming 80% of these people whether using phone or laptop will use google photos

So, possible people segment=160M.

Out of 160M not everybody will upload equally

15-30 – young group= say 10 photos weekend + 20 photos during week= 30 photos per week.
30-45 – families with young kids=10 photos weekend + 10 photos during week=20 photos.
45-65= 5 photos per week.

Let’s say 160M is equally distributed among above groups. So, around 53M each group

Total photo per weeks = 53*30+53*20+53*5=1590+1060+159=2809~3000M=3B

Different photos have different size based on camera used. For simplicity I will take on average its 2MB

Then per weeks storage size =3B*2MB=6Petabyte

Per year=(6*52week)=312Ppetabyte= 312*10^6 GB

Unit cost of storing = 0.002/GB

Total Cost of string = (0.002/GB)*312*10^6=624*10^4=624*10^3=624,000

Feedback Welcome

asp · Answer 3 · 2020-04-17T00:02:07+0000

Clarification questions:

Is the cost required to be calculated for per person or total cost ? (Total cost annually for Google)

Is this only for phone users using the photos app or storing photos on google cloud? (just phone users using photos app).

Equation:

To estimate the cost, we need to know the no. of users * avg photos usage of the user (photos storing habit)*size of an average photo*price per photo storage.

No. of users of Google photo app. (comes from mainly android phone users, as default application).

Total no. of population worldwide =7B of which android has 35% marketshare worldwide~ 2.4B.

Assuming atleast 80% of those users use google photo app ~1.9B users.

Different kind of users type of photo app-

User Type	% of Users	No. of users	No. of photo clicked/user	Total no. of photos in a year
High users	20%	380M	1000/year	380B photos
Medium users	60%	1.2B	500/year	600B photos
Low users	20%	380M	100/year	380B photos

i.e A total of ~1100B photos a year. Assuming a size of 2MB on an avg, the total size of photos= 2200B MB (i.e1T MB)

Assuming the price of storage is $2 for 100 GB (i.e: 100*1000MB), the price for 2200B MB is $44M

Hung Nguyen · Answer 4 · 2020-04-15T19:13:39+0000

Clarifying questions:

How does Google Photo work? What is the difference between Google Photo and Google Drive?

=> Google Photo is the free application for storing photos and videos with limited size.

=> Google Drive is limited within 15GB for free. You have to pay if you want to use more and the size of files in Google Drive is unlimited.

Which period of time do you want me to estimate? Cost per month or per year?

=> Annually

Cost for storing in Google Photo? Not closure

=> I know that the price in Google Drive is $2/100 GB/month

=> I assume that the cost of Cloud takes ~10% of revenue => $0.02/GB/year

Estimation

Result = Number of users x Storage per users x Cost

Number of users:
- World population ~8 billion => 50% people storing photo => 4 billion
- 40% of people store offline using hardware, …
- 60% of people store online => 4x60% = 2.4 billion people
- Market share of photo/videos online storage
  - Google Photo: 20% => 2.4x20% = 480 million people
  - Google Drive: 10%
  - Dropbox: 20%
  - One Drive: 15%
  - Flickr: 15%
  - Others: 20%

Storage per user:
- Photo:
  - ~12 albums/year
  - ~1000 photo/albums
  - 0.5Mb-4Mb/photo in Google Photo => 2MB/photo

=> 12x1000x2MB = 48 GB/user/year

- Video:
  - 10 times per year
  - Original size of videos per year = maximum of typical SD card (16-64Gb => ~32Gb)
  - Compression rate: 10%

=> 10x32x0.1 = 32 GB/user/year

Storage/user/year = 32 + 48 = 80 Gb/year

Cost of storing google photos on the photos app = 480 mil x 80 x $0.02 = $768 million