Leaked data reveals ‘Squid Game’ has made Netflix nearly $900 million, over 42 times its original cost

October 18, 2021

South Korean thriller “Squid Game,” which Netflix recently announced to be its

Estimating value: While the streaming giant cannot measure sales based on a specific film or show, it uses an “efficiency” metric that assesses an individual title’s performance by looking at data on what customers watch during a particular period, according to Bloomberg News.

The metric reportedly determined that “Squid Game” generated $891.1 million in impact value for the company.
The Netflix document Bloomberg cited also revealed that the show’s entire first season cost the company about $21.4 million to produce.
Outside this new information, Netflix recently revealed that 132 million people have watched at least two minutes of “Squid Game” in its first 23 days on the platform. The figure broke the record set by “Bridgerton,” which was streamed by 82 million users in its first 28 days.
This data, however, does not measure the show’s stickiness, or how many users stuck around, and completion rate, which refers to how many users finished the series. This differs from figures from linear TV networks, which report the average number of people who actually watch a show for its entire duration.
In the leaked document, Netflix estimated that “Squid Game” viewers have spent over 1.4 billion hours watching the show. The data also revealed that 89% of users watched at least 75 minutes (over one episode), and 66% (87 million accounts) have finished the series in the first 23 days.

Not for public consumption: According to Reuters, a lawyer representing Netflix sent a letter to Bloomberg saying it would be inappropriate for the news website to disclose the confidential data in the documents.

“Netflix does not discuss these metrics outside the company and takes significant steps to protect them from disclosure,” the letter warned.
The internal document revealed Netflix’s efficiency metric, which measures adjusted view share (how valuable its viewers are considered) relative to cost.
It determined that the show scored 353 AVS points, resulting in a mark of 41.7x in “efficiency.” An AVS of over 9 or 10 is already considered high, and an efficiency rating of 1x is considered solid.

For investors’ eyes: Bloomberg noted that the internal figures “are likely to cheer investors, who have regained enthusiasm for Netflix” due to the show’s popularity.

In the first half of 2021, the streaming service reported its slowest rate of new subscriber sign-ups since 2013.
However, since the release of “Squid Game” on Sept. 17, the company’s shares have gone up to 7%, raising its valuation to $278.1 billion.

Featured Image via Netflix

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