Size of Indian eLearning Industry and Growth Potential

This post comes from a question asked to me by a journalist on size of Indian elearning industry and its growth potential in coming few years.

Based on our own market insights, inputs provided by industry analysts and data available in elearning directories, current Indian elearning industry landscape looks something like this –

• Indian elearning industry employs about 11,000 people and total revenue is estimated at $316 million
• Domestic elearning industry is about 10% of the total industry size and stands at around $30 million
• Indian elearning industry had been experiencing a healthy CAGR of approximately 30% over last 5 years. Except the current fiscal year, we expect the industry to grow at similar or better pace for coming few years.

To estimate growth potential and growth rates we considered following questions –

• What is the current maturity level of Indian elearning industry?
• What is the global elearning market size, and what’s India’s share in the same?
• What are the growth opportunities in Indian market?
• How does elearning industry numbers compare with more established ‘Software & Related Services’ industry numbers?

To get answer to our first question, we looked at size of different elearning organizations. Findings are summarized in the chart below –

Indian eLearning Companies

We now have over 30 organizations with 100+ employees, and there is also a significant activity happening at entry level. We thus have the foundation laid, but as we will see from numbers below, there is lot of work that needs to be done – we quickly need to move up the value chain, and we need to further strengthen the talent base to capitalise the potential.

Let’s also look at a comparison between elearning and ‘Software & Related Services’ industry segments that can help us estimate growth possibilities –

eLearning Vs Software & Related Services

Now all the factors that have worked in favour of ‘Software & Related Services’ industry (abundant talent, cost arbitrage, process maturity, adherence to standards, government support, and growing domestic market) are in place or are getting in place for elearning industry as well. I thus believe that in next decade or so, Indian elearning industry would carve out similar presence in global market as achieved by ‘Software and Related Services’ sector.

To get into a bit of specifics, based on above comparison table and analysis of industry trends, I believe following would happen over next 4-5 years –

1. Organizations that have achieved certain scale would go in for more and more direct presence in geographies which are big elearning consumers. I see these organizations growing at CAGR of 30 – 40% or more.
2. On domestic front, I believe we are increasingly getting close to the tipping point and we will experience aggressive growth for coming few years.
3. Now that Indian corporate sector has realized benefits of elearning, I see it growing at 80-100% on yearly basis for next 5 years.
4. With renewed thrust on education and skill development by Government of India and role of technology being imperative in realizing the goals being set, there are endless opportunities that are opening up in this sector. The scope is so wide that I would not even hazard a guess on what can be the growth percentages over here.

All in all, exciting times ahead!