The Indian market for education is growing at an impressive rate . The graph below, from a recently conducted survey, marks the trends of the Indian education market
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The Indian education market is currently valued at US$ 40 billion and is growing at a rapid rate. The major segment in this is the k-12( US$20 billion) one, and this is because the average age of the Indian population is becoming younger. The other major segment is Professional Colleges ( US$ 40 billion). The main factors driving this growth is the huge void between the literate and non literate population in the country, which is fast reducing.
Factors promoting this growth are
- Demographic transformation
- Rising household income
- Economic growth
- Increased demand for skilled manpower
- Rise of working women in the  market
The Goverment of India has also taken a lot of initiatives to push this growth. The funding for 2007-08 was a whopping 1573 billion rupees. The growth is clear with the increase in IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), IIMs (Indian Institute of Management ), IB schools etc.
Regarding publishing, the market size is currently valued at 200 billion rupees, which can be further divided into:
- Books                                      130 billion(INR)
- Magazines                             30 billion(INR)
- Newspapers and others  40 billion(INR)
These are figures pertaining to the organized sector for 2007-2008. This has increased further in the last fiscal year.
What is most important if one is planning to tap this market is that India is further divided into many mini Indias. This is due to the variations between different segments owing to languages, cultures, income strata, different educational  boards, laws etc.
Before entering the  Indian market for business opportunities, one has to realize certain harsh realities. Some of the important ones are listed below:
- Without identifying your own “Target  India “, one is always running a high risk.
- No single strategy will ever work for all your target segments.
- There are huge market drivers which constantly effect the buying decision of customers in India.
- The set-up and running cost of management in India is huge.
- Most sectors, especially in the Book Industry are highly disorganized.
- Not a single large book selling chain with successful Pan India operations exists  here.
- In India emotions will always override Monetory considerations while influencing decisions.
- The number of  Book retail outlets, especially in academics have shown almost nil growth in the past five years.
- Even today computerized billing has not penetrated more than 5% of the market.
- Due to lack of Market mapping and Sales mapping, product returns in Indian publishing are still very high.
- Credit lines to distributors and retailers are very long and can go upto 12 months in a few cases.
However, inspite of all these factors there are many positive signs which are as follows:-
- Increased establishment of brands has taken place over the last decade.
- Focussed marketing activities, clubbed with good PR and promotions have helped  publishers grow at almost 100% growth rate.
- Spending on Education is now treateed like an asset and not an expense with good support coming from all corners including banks and corporates.
- Once your market is established, there  is immense brand loyalty amongst teachers and institutes.
- FDI in Publishing has been opened up by the goverment and one can establish operations of any size.
- The education system in India is fast evolving and getting closer to its global equivalents  making big scope for new products of international standards.
With all these factors and some others, one can safely say that once you have spent 2-3 years understanding the market dynamics and survived, you can hope for some really good growth.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under India Is Waiting For You.
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