Guesstimate: How Big Is the Amazon Prime Video Business?

You are asked for a back-of-the-envelope estimate of how big Amazon's Prime Video service is. Pick the measure you will report and justify it, build the number step by step from assumptions you say out loud, and check whether the result is believable. ```hint Count the ways in People reach Prime Video in more than one way, and the service earns money in more than one way. Decide which of these you are counting before you multiply anything. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does "market size" mean Prime Video's own audience, its yearly revenue, or the whole streaming market it competes in? - Should the estimate cover only the United States or the whole world? - Do people who get Prime Video as part of an Amazon Prime membership count, and if so, how much of the membership fee belongs to video? - Should advertising and pay-per-title rentals and purchases be included alongside subscriptions? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear definition of the unit (households, viewers or dollars), the geography and the time period. - An equation that separates the ways people access Prime Video and the ways it earns money. - Explicit, round, defensible assumptions, with correct arithmetic at every step. - A sanity check from an independent angle and a range showing which assumptions matter most. ### Follow-up Questions - Which single assumption moves your answer the most, and how would you get a better number for it? - How would your approach change if you were asked for the global figure instead of one country? - If the price of the standalone video plan went up, which parts of your estimate would change, and in which direction?