Netflix’s Squid Game is estimated to be worth $900 million

After being officially declared as Netflix’s biggest ever launch, Squid Game is estimated to be worth almost $900 million (£654m) for the streaming service.

The nine-episode thriller explores a dystopian reality, in which a mysterious organisation recruits people in debt to compete in a series of deadly childhood games for the chance to win a life-changing amount of money.

According to an internal Netflix document reviewed by Bloomberg, Squid Game generated $891.1 million (£648.8m) in impact value, a metric the company uses to assess the performance from individual shows.

Watch: Squid Game becomes Netflix’s most popular series ever

It was also revealed that the show cost just $21.3 million (£15.51m) to produce, with approximately $2.4 million (£1.75m) per episode.

Netflix declined to comment on the new report, and an attorney representing the company told Bloomberg that “it would be inappropriate for them to disclose the confidential data contained in the documents that they had reviewed.”

“Netflix does not discuss these metrics outside the company and takes significant steps to protect them from disclosure,” the attorney said.

The Korean-language drama was a surprise hit for the platform when it was released on 17 September, with Netflix boss Ted Sarandos saying that there was a “very good chance” the show would become their most-watched TV show of all time.

On Tuesday (12 October) night, Netflix announced it had broken all records after 111 million people tuned into the dystopian drama.

“Squid Game has officially reached 111 million fans – making it our biggest series launch ever,” they tweeted.

The show surpassed British-romance series Bridgerton, which previously set the record after being watched 82 million times in its first 28 days.

Netflix considers a viewer to be someone who watches two minutes of one episode of show, an amount of time they say is “long enough to indicate the choice was intentional”.

Squid Game was also on Netflix’s top 10 list in approximately 94 countries and is the platform’s first-ever Korean series to reach the No 1 spot in the US.

Watch: 'Squid Game' spurs interest in learning Korean