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Finding entire market size when given percent and number of a portion

Hi,

I have a question about finding an entire market size when given the percent and numerical size of a portion of said market. 

Example:

"If $9k is 6% of the market, what is the entire market size?"

I chose to solve this by making $9k = 5% and got a total market size of $180k, knowing this was larger than the actual market size.

My question now is how do I find the actual (or at least close to) total market size? What is the methodology for decreasing from $180k to find the right answer?

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Top answer
Sidi
Coach
on Nov 05, 2018
McKinsey Senior EM & BCG Consultant | Interviewer at McK & BCG for 7 years | Coached 400+ candidates secure MBB offers

The way I usually think: if 9k is 6%, then 1% is 1.5k. Hence 100% is 150k.

Cheers, Sidi

edited on Nov 05, 2018

It is easy... 

assume it to be x. 

6 % of x is 9K 

6/100 * x= 9 K 

x= 9k *100/6 

x= 150k 

you choose 5 instead of 6 and got it as 180. 

1
Deleted
Coach
on Nov 05, 2018

Hi there,

The way to do this accurately is simply to do the calculation, including some basic fractions:

- if $9k is 6%, that means that Total (T) *6%=9k,

- Rewriting it in terms of T you get --> T=9k/6%

- Rewriting 6% as a fraction you get --> T=9k/(6/100)=9k*100/6= 900k/6

- 900k/6 you can easily solve by splitting 6 into (3*2) - so 900k/3/2 = 300k/2 = 150k

Hope this helps!

Alessandro

on Nov 06, 2018
ex-Manager - Natural and challenging teacher - Taylor case solving, no framework

Hi,
Up for Sidi approach, I do the same ;)

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