The online education market in India is estimated to witness an 8x growth over the next 5 years to reach the $1.96 billion and around 9.6 million users by 2021. Online searches for education also have been increased by a two-fold and a three-fold in searches from a mobile device over the last two years.

Take an overview of the current trends and challenges in various segments of Indian online education:

Online Education in India – 2016:

• The online education market in India estimated with $247 million in 2016 with approximately 1.57 million paid users.
• Online certification courses and reskilling – the process of learning new skills – are the largest category in the Indian online education industry; estimated with $93 million & 499 thousand users and expected to reach $463 in 2021.

Growth Drivers of Online Education in India:

• Lower infrastructure cost helps to reduced prices via the online channel and that is the main driver of online education growth, followed by availability of quality education, employability quotient and government’s digital initiatives.
• There are about 409 million internet users today, with an internet penetration rate of 31%. Increasing penetration in semi-urban and rural areas provides high potential for growth of Indian online education.
• Growing smartphone penetration across India also drives the technology adoption amongst Indians. There are nearly 290 million smartphone users in India today and they’re expected to grow with the addition of approximately 180 million new users by 2021.

User Profile, Channel and Device Preferences and Key Challenges of Online Education in India:

• Students with a science background are adopting online education more than other students with a rate of 85.7%.
• Students are opting for online education because of the better concentration at home, the variety of courses and convenience.
• Laptops grabbed 88% of device preference adopted by students, compared to 72% went to mobile devices.
• Content pricing (36%), limitation of content (35%) and the low content availability at lower rates (34%) are the key 3 challenges that faced by students adapting to online education in India.

Graph Shows the Market Size of Online Education in India in 2016 and Predictions for 2021

Methodology:

Data were driven from 3600 respondents in India, adding to 5 focus group discussion (FGD) with 5-6 respondents in each group, from New Delhi. All respondents aged 15-45 years old.