E-learning Market - Global Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

The e-learning market size to reach usd 190 billion in 2020 and growing at a cagr of 14% during the forecast period. The global e-learning market is expected to display significant growth opportunities in the next five years. While the growth curve is uniform in terms of the number of users, the same is not the case by revenues; the average cost of content creation and delivery with the same is undergoing a consistent decline. The advent of cloud infrastructure, peer-to-peer problem solving, open content creation, and rapid expansion of the target audience have enabled e-learning providers to rein in economies of choice and offer course content at a competitive price. The rapid growth in internet connectivity in emerging economies, driven by the rising federal budgets, is likely to have a positive impact on market growth. While the growth prospects of the e-learning market remain stable, the rise of efficient sub-segments is changing the learning and training landscape gradually.

The global lockdown of education institutions, corporations, and government offices has caused major interruptions in students’ learning and education, disruptions in internal assessments, and the cancellation of public assessments. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 has paved opportunities for the growth of the e-learning segment. The lockdown is expected to boost the demand for e-learning platforms, resulting in a spike in the market during the forecast period. The demand might decline in the post lockdown period in 2020, especially in K-12 and higher education end-users; however, the market would witness steady growth during the forecast period.

SNIPPETS

• With the rise in digitization, public and private sectors are undertaking ambitious plans pertaining to online tutoring, digital content delivery, thereby boosting the market for e-learning.
• LMS segment is expected to witness an absolute growth of 201% due to the increasing effectiveness of content sourcing, aggregation, and interaction mode among end-users.
• The instructor-led segment is likely to observe an incremental growth of $72 billion on account of high inclination toward personalized education and instructor-led training.
• Canada is expected to witness an additional growth of $13 billion by 2025 due to better availability of internet infrastructure and high ownership of smartphones and tablets.

E-LEARNING MARKET: SEGMENTATION

This research report includes a detailed market segmentation by

• Delivery Mode
• Learning Mode
• Function
• End-users
• Geography

INSIGHTS BY DELIVERY MODE

The packaged content delivery segment holds the largest E-learning market share. It is gaining popularity as this mode is comfortable and offers a no-time-and-space constraint option. As this mode saves time because it nullifies traveling and reaches students in remote locations, it is cost-effective for students and professionals, thereby increasing its application. This mode of education costs 30−70% less than campus courses.

In terms of revenues, North America is expected to contribute over $70 billion to the segment by 2025.  LMS systems, which enable the easy collaboration of content, testing material, and information exchange among peer groups both in the academic and corporate world, is likely to capture decent share due to the rapid proliferation of smartphones and the development of interactive and gamified learning platforms.

INSIGHTS BY LEARNING MODE

The self-paced learning segment will grow at a faster rate, followed by instructor-led e-learning modules. The segment is likely to maintain its dominance in the global e-learning market during the forecast period. The growing preference for continuous learning and scaling new career opportunities of employees is driving corporates to use technology for accessing the content anywhere across the globe. Europe, Russia, and the UK have emerged as the major consumers for self-paced e-learning over the last decade. The US is the largest market in the world, with the potential to radically influence the prospects of the global e-learning market.

Instructor-led e-learning is expected to be the future of digital learning in developing regions. It not only offers flexibility to the learner but also to the instructor. Language learning is a great market opportunity in China, with the country accounting for more than 300 million English language learners, a majority of which are still rely on the off-line modes of instruction.

INSIGHTS BY FUNCTION 

The training segment is expected to witness high growth in the APAC region. Examination training, especially for GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, and IELTS, is a major market opportunity in the region with a dearth for testing resources and the presence of a large learner segment. E-testing is indispensable in this context, with the APAC region emerging to be a major market for pre-examination training. Another major factor that is driving the adoption of technology-enabled learning in the region is aggressive government expenditure intended to revamp the conventional education models. The training, which includes professional, governmental-related, and academic, was estimated at $113 billion in 2019, with a revenue share of 72% of the global e-learning market. Testing, on the other hand, was the fastest-growing segment with a market size of more than $40 billion, primarily comprising the administration of professional tests, including SAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS, GMAT, and several other exclusive and common admission tests across the world. The market demand for testing services is estimated at almost twice as much as training services since testing services are often consumed on a recurrent and paid basis, while courseware purchase and LMS access are often for a lifetime or an extended period.

INSIGHTS BY END-USERS

The corporate e-learning market is majorly driven by increasing emphasis on talent enhancement and retention. Globalization is mandating a different set of functional and language skills for the critical workforce as companies expand their business presence across geographies. The corporate training market represents an excellent investment opportunity for vendors in the global e-learning market. In mature markets, large companies can be early adopters as their training programs, and content covers compliance, IT management, and industry-related courses. The UK is a potential market for corporate learning. A majority of organizations are focusing on enabling collaboration and knowledge transfer between remote teams, functional skill enhancement and cross-domain knowledge sharing, and training for entry-level employees and newcomers.

The higher education segment is observing high demand for digital courses, content, educational materials, and paid subscriptions for global e-learning platforms. The advent of massive open online courses has witnessed unprecedented traction among students of international universities and schools. Europe has a well-established market for e-learning in higher education.

INSIGHTS BY GEOGRAPHY

The market is driven by better technological infrastructure, extensive reach of innovative learning and training solutions, and high awareness of e-learning over conventional offline learning models. With the increasing trend of using online courses and learning materials as a practical substitute for regular classroom teaching, the market in North America is experiencing tremendous growth. This is driving the popularity and acceptance of digital solutions. The high average disposable income of the population, the rapid proliferation of smartphones, and innovations in the development of interactive and gamified learning platforms are the main factors that are expected to fuel the market growth in the region.

The APAC e-learning market is expected to be influenced by the increasing penetration of the internet and smartphones, along with rapid urbanization. With the availability of budget smartphones, high disposable income, and increased buying power of the middle-class population, especially in China, South Korea, and India, the use and daily active time spent on smartphones have surged in recent years, which is likely to influence e-learning business opportunities.

The APAC e-learning market is relatively smaller than the North American counterpart. However, it is displaying impressive growth driven by some structural changes in key countries such as India and China. These two countries figure among the leading five e-learning markets in the world and are characterized by rising disposable incomes and expanding internet infrastructure.

INSIGHTS BY VENDORS

The global E-learning market share is relatively fragmented. Setting the price right to effectively gauge and capture the marginal utility of the potential consumer is a strategic challenge for vendors in the e-learning market. Since there are few safeguards to protect intellectual property, especially in terms of content copyright, vendors must innovate and offer better engaging content through effective ways always. This will enable them to better deal with the price-based competition that arises as a result of the growing concentration of players. Because of a large number of players and the face of rapidly evolving learning preferences, it is imperative for vendors to not only focus on customer acquisition but also retention. While freemium offerings with attractive short-term subscription pricing can help garner a large customer base, continuous investments in product development, primarily through gamified and contextualized interfaces, can help them engage and retain the learning audience. Further, vendors also have to keep a continuous track of the pricing of new entrants. At the same time, price-based competition is not recommended, attractive prices can well detract buyers, and the same has to be effectively mitigated with innovation and product development.

The global E-Learning market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry with growth rates, revenues & forecasts for the following segments: 

By Delivery Mode

• Packaged Content
• SaaS/LMS
• Others

By Learning Mode

• Self-paced
• Instructor-led

By Type

• Training
• Testing

By End-user

• K-12
• Higher Education
• Corporates
• Government
• Vocational

By Geography

• North America
• US
• Canada
• Europe
• UK
• France
• Spain
• Germany
• Nordics
• APAC
• China
• Japan
• India
• Australia
• South Korea
• Latin America
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Mexico
• Middle East & Africa
• Chile
• GCC
• South Africa