Edtech Startup BYJU’S Paid Subscribers Rise Over 1.5 Mn: Mary Meeker Report

Among the broad categories that online education platforms operate, Mary Meeker’s report has featured the Indian edtech unicorn BYJU’S for its virtual video-based classrooms. According to the report, BYJU’S number of paying students between the ages of 9-17, has crossed over 1.5 Mn in March 2019 from the 1 Mn mark in the last financial year.

Founded in 2008 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran, BYJU’S offers a learning app, which was launched in 2015 and has learning programmes for students in classes IV-XII along with courses to help students prepare for competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE, and GMAT.

Bengaluru-based unicorn BYJU’S has claimed to have tripled its revenue to INR 1,430 Cr ($204.36 Mn) in FY18-19, to turn profitable on a full year basis.

The team believes that the growth in revenue was fuelled by deeper penetration across India and significant growth in the number of paid subscribers. Company claims to have over 35 Mn registered users, with 60% of its students hailing from outside of the top 10 cities. Further, its average overall renewal rate is said to be 85%.

Growth Of Online Education

According to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2019 report, online education space has been attracting huge traction and growth over the past few years. The report noted the growing cost of undergraduate tuition and increasing student loan debt as one of the reasons for the rise of online education sector.

Further, the emergence of online education has helped offline institution to expand their reach. In the US, revered institutions such as University of Pennsylvania, Imperial College London, and University of Illinois have moved online with the help of platforms like Coursera.

The report noted that annual viewership hours of ‘How To’ Youtube videos has reached 4.5Bn with 59% next generation users citing it their preferred learning tool. This preference trend can also be observed in the subscribers count of educational Youtube channels such as Khan Academy (5Mn), Smarter Every Day (around 6Mn), Asap SCIENCE(around 7Mn ), TED-Ed(about 8Mn), and Crash Course (9Mn).

Meanwhile, the Indian edtech segment is expected to be a $1.96 Bn market by 2021. According to Inc42 Datalabs, there were 3,500 edtech startups in India in 2018. Between 2014 to 2018, 182 edtech startups were funded with a total of $1.34 Bn. Of this, about 77% was poured into just four edtech companies — BYJU’s, Toppr, Unacademy, and Vedantu.

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