Estimation question

How would you estimate the number of mobile phones sold by Xiaomi in a day?

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Tests structured estimation working from known annual shipment figures down to a daily rate.

State the goal: estimate Xiaomi's average daily phone sales, working from known annual shipment scale.
Estimate annual shipments: assume Xiaomi ships roughly 150 million phones globally per year, given its position among top global smartphone makers.
Convert to daily average: 150 million divided by 365 days, about 410,000 phones per day.
Adjust for seasonality: note sales cluster around launch events and holiday seasons, so the daily figure is an average, not a constant rate.
Sanity-check: compare against competitors of similar market share to confirm the annual anchor is reasonable.
State the estimate as a range, roughly 350,000 to 450,000 phones per day, to reflect seasonality uncertainty.

Anchors on a known, defensible annual shipment estimate before dividing down to a daily rate.
Explicitly notes seasonality, avoiding false precision from a flat daily average.
Sanity-checks the annual anchor against Xiaomi's known position among global smartphone makers.
Gives a range rather than one falsely precise number, reflecting real uncertainty.

Guessing a daily number directly with no annual anchor or shipment logic.
Presenting one precise number with no range, ignoring known seasonality in phone sales.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.