India’s online education industry will be $1.96 billion by 2021: Google, KPMG

Capturing the growing influence of the Internet on the education industry in India, Google and KPMG today released a joint report titled; ‘Online Education in India: 2021. The report reveals that the online education industry will grow at a healthy rate of 8x, to become a $1.96 billion industry by 2021. The report is based on a comprehensive market research conducted by KPMG, along with a primary research and combined with insights from Google search. The report finds that the paid user base will grow 6X from 1.6 million users in 2016 to 9.6 million users in 2021.  

The report revealed that over the last two years, there has been a 2x growth in online searches for education and a 3X growth in searches from a mobile device. Also, 44 per cent of education searches are now coming from beyond the top 6 metros and there has been a 4X growth in education content consumption on YouTube in the last one year.

Highlighting the segment wise growth in the online education space, the report highlights that reskilling and online certification is currently the largest. In 2016, it was valued at USD 93 million, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 38% to reach 463 million by 2021.

As per the report, the primary and secondary education category has the largest addressable audience with a student base of around 260 million when compared to the other categories. Owing to this, the primary and secondary supplementary education segment was the second largest category in 2016, and will grow at a CAGR of 60% to reach $773 million, making it the largest category in 2021. The test preparation which is a small segment as of today is likely to grow at an impressive CAGR of 64 per cent to become a USD 515 million category in 2021.