Estimate the number of videos watched on YouTube per day.

Let me start with some clarifying questions:

Which region are we focussing on?

India

Which medium are we focussing on? Smartphones? PC/Laptops?

Smartphones.

Basic Equation: # of Users using Youtube * # of videos per day 

A) # of Users using Youtube in Smartphones:

Total population (X) = 1380 M

% of users with smartphones = % of smartphone penetration = 40% * X = 552M 

B) # of videos per day = total time spent per day/ time per video

Users can be further divided into different categories depending on their usage:

• Power Users: People who watch videos actively. We can assume an average of 150 mins per day by consuming videos of an average length of 30mins. - 10% of the total users using YoutTube in Smartphone = 150/30 = 5
• Casual Users: People who watch videos about 60 mins per day by consuming videos on an average length of 10 mins. - 40%  of the total users using YoutTube in Smartphone = 60/10 = 6
• Occasional Users: People consuming videos in total for about 30 mins per day on an average of 5 mins per video - 50% of the total users using YoutTube in Smartphone = 30/5 = 6

Let me start with some clarifying questions. 

1.  is this estimation for the US or worldwide?

Ans: US 

2. is this for Premium or ad-sponsored?

Ans: All 

3. Short term videos or long terms videos? 

Ans: All

Solution

The population of the US: 331 Mn.

Since there is no problem with the internet we can assume 87% of the population uses the Internet that is 288 Mn. 

will remove the age >70 as the not relevant audience of youtube which is approx 16% of the population of total internet usage. that is approx 46 million leaving 242 million. 

Adoption of youtube with the remaining population = 60% (including and overlap with other video service platforms like Netflix, amazon prime, etc) leaving approx 145 million. 

let me further segment these into Passive users, Medium users, and Power users. 

Passive user: watch <= 30 min, which is about (Because its low usage focuses on short-form content avg 5 min length) - 50%

Medium users: watch  >30 and <2 hr , assume average watch time is 80 min for ease of calculation (focus on medium-term content with average duration is 10 min) - 30%

Power users: >2 hrs, assume average watch is 180 min (focused on mix of short and long content with average duration 30 min) - 20%

Further calculating each category

Low = 30/5 = 6 videos / day * 50% of 145 Mn = 435 Mn Videos

Medium = 80/10 = 8 videos / day * 30% of 145 Mn = 348 Mn Videos

High = 180/30 = 6 Videos / day *20% of 145 Mn= 174 Mn Videos (approx)

Total Videos watched per day in the US = 957 Mn videos