Online revenue generated – Kommersant

The revenue of Russia’s largest educational services in 2023 increased by a third, to 119 billion rubles, as calculated by Smart Ranking. The largest edtech holding in terms of revenue was Skillbox Holding, with a gap of only 2.5% from Skyeng. Among the trends noted at the end of the year are the growth in revenue of software developers for online schools and a shift in purchasing activity towards the beginning of the school year. Analysts expect that the children’s education market, which currently accounts for 30% of the ranking by revenue, will take over the leadership of the additional education segment in 2024.

The total revenue of the hundred largest edtech companies in the Russian Federation amounted to 119 billion rubles. at the end of 2023, which is 32% higher than in 2022, Smart Ranking told Kommersant. The largest companies by this indicator are VK Skillbox Holding (12.3 billion rubles, an increase of 11.1%) and Skyeng (12 billion rubles, an increase of 26.2%). The top 10 edtech companies, to which the agency includes online courses from Synergy University (8.47 billion rubles, an increase of 24.2%), account for half of the market’s revenue.

At the beginning of 2023, Smart Ranking announced more modest forecasts: growth was expected to reach 20%. The updated forecasts, as the agency clarified to Kommersant, were calculated based on more complete data collected in subsequent months. In 2024, Smart Ranking expects the edtech market to grow by another 15–20% based on its “base case scenario.”

The indicators of the largest segment of the market, additional professional education (35%), increased by 27%: the revenue of companies in this segment from the top 100 reached 43.5 billion. The revenue within the segment increased the most for the Ultimate Education holding – by 72%, to 1 .9 billion rub. The general director of the holding, Pavel Moseikin, connected this with “centralization of internal processes, active expansion within the CIS, development of the B2B direction and end-to-end commercial projects.”

The second largest segment, children’s education (30%), shows higher growth rates (37%): the revenue of the largest companies in this area amounted to 36.7 billion rubles. In 2024, Smart Ranking believes, children’s education “may take first place.”

General Director of Maximum Education Mikhail Myagkov noted that in the case of offers for secondary schools, there is an increase in interest in products for vocational guidance, and in the case of high schools – in additional education in general: “A significant percentage of ninth-graders choose secondary vocational education rather than continuing learning at school.”

Researchers note a sharp growth in the segment of specialized software developers for edtech companies (“Developers and Platforms”, revenue of the largest companies is 17.1 billion rubles): at the end of the year, its income increased by 46%, and its share in the ranking was 14%. This is more than business education (7%, 8.64 billion rubles) and foreign language teaching (6%, 7.38 billion rubles) combined. The agency named Getcourse, the developer of the learning management system (LMS) of the same name, as the main driver of the segment. The company’s annual revenue increased to 5 billion rubles. (growth by 188.5% year-on-year), which placed it in sixth place in the ranking of the largest companies on the market.

Based on data for the fourth quarter, the agency also talks about changes in the seasonality of consumer behavior of online school clients: “The most profitable period is not the period of pre-holiday sales, as before, but the beginning of the school year.”

If previously the revenue of companies in the fourth quarter was traditionally higher than in the third, then in 2023 a number of large players (Skillbox Holding, Top Computer Academy) were unable to increase it at the end of the year. For some players, the indicators of the last quarter decreased relative to the third – for example, Synergy (a drop of 25.1%) and Foxford (a drop of 15.41%). “However, we must understand that the third quarter showed record growth,” Ms. Ryzhkova clarifies. Then (see “Kommersant” dated November 1, 2023) the revenue of the hundred largest edtech companies grew by 38%.

Yuri Litvinenko