IS BYJU’S BEING A MONOPOLY IN ONLINE EDUCATION SECTOR?

 

Byju`s is an Indian Online Educational technology company which is located in Bangalore. It was founded in 2011 by Byju’s Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath. As of June 2021, Byju's valued at $ 16.5 billion, making it the most valuable online educational company.

Byju’s Being an Online Teaching Education Platform has utilized pandemic in a different way. It started expanding its services by targeting Top Private Corporate schools to Government Schools by Providing its services from kindergarten level to +2 Level. To Promote their Product, they also did a celebrity Endorsement with Bollywood Actor Shah Rukh Khan.

Why Byju’s is doing this much and targeting all sectors?

This is all because byju’s want to be the monopoly in the online education platform and when anyone thinks of learning anything from Online, the median should be Byju’s. So Byju’s started analyzing its competitors and started to improve its way of reaching its targeted customers. During Pandemic when everything switched from Offline to Online, Byju’s grabbed this opportunity and started expanding its market by Digital Learning. They also promoted themselves by Print and Electronic Media and created even digital marketing. Their main targeted customers were Families with Double Income where their children can engage for the whole day with online learning when their parents are gone for work. It also Targeted economically backward Families by Starting the “Education for All” Campaign. This campaign's main motive is all children irrespective of Economic background should get a Quality Education.

When other companies started to follow in the same footsteps as Byju’s, it sensed that there is going to be tough competition. This is the phase when Byju’s started analyzing its competitors and started acquiring them. It all started first with White Hat Jr. In July 2020, it acquired White Hat Jr. for $300 Million. This created a Monopolistic market in the Online Education Platform in terms of Kindergarten Level and Elementary Level. In the year 2021 Byju’s acquired Aakash Educational Services for $940 Million.

In July 2021, Byju’s had entered into International Market by acquiring Epic! An Online Kids subscription-based learning and Reading Platform for $500 Million. In the same month, it acquired Great Learning for $600 Million.

Byju’s recently released an open statement that it is in talks of Acquiring Vedantu. But Vedantu Denied the Fact that it is not ready to go for this acquisition. Vedantu is one of the tough Competitors for Byju’s. When Byju’s analyzed the Market not only Vedantu but also there is another company Named Toppr, which is also an online education platform. The Most Common point is all three concentrates on Class 11 and 12. So Byju’s without thinking had a deal with Toppr and Acquired Toppr in July 2021. They didn’t disclose the Deal Amount. With this Byju’s had only one Competitor in Digital Education i.e., Vedantu.

 

How Byju Segmented, Targeted and Positioned its customers?

Byju’s segmented its customers into two Categories. Underprivileged and Privileged. As Discussed above Byju had started the “Education for All” Campaign for Economic backward/Underprivileged Families. They targeted Rural Areas with minimalistic opportunities. The Other Category Privileged had all Access and best Opportunities.

Byju’s after segmenting its customers thought that the underprivileged is not their choice. So, they Targeted the other Category i.e., Privileged Customers. They started providing the best offers to these people and analyzed that these people are multitaskers and they need after-school support like a tutor.

Byju’s positioned itself as an all-rounder in the market. It is serving as an alternative solution for all types of customers who want to learn something Online. It showcasing itself as one of the best applications for students in terms of learning by providing high quality for students and one-to-one sessions with faculties and recorded sessions as well.

We can see that Byju’s had taken advantage of this pandemic and acquired so many companies and even it started to tie up with so many schools in most of the metropolitan and Tier-2 cities. As I mentioned earlier parents with double Income can engage their children with post-completion of school by taking Byju’s subscription. Even some schools had included Byju’s as their internal Learning and making parents to purchase the byju’s subscription as a part of the curriculum. Even some parents are aspiring their kids to study in IIT or NIIT, to keep their foundations strong they are engaging their kids with these online learnings from class 6 itself.

Recently we had seen that China had banned after-school tutoring due to the excess fee in online education and most of the parents couldn’t afford that much amount. Parents are thinking that education is too costly and China might face issues down the line. This might help Byju’s and other companies as they can sign MOU with the government to provide education at a reasonable cost and even if our Indian Tech Companies file IPO, it will help them as well to get a good deal with the government. This can help both the Countries as a peace treaty.

In my view, Byju’s can withstand the monopoly market as it had acquired so many companies under its root and if one fails, he can get compensate with another one. Byju’s analyzed all its competitors and acquired all the companies which provide different services in online education. Byju's had acquired Grade up an online test platform to help students to prepare for their exams and attend mock exams.

With these many Acquisitions, Byju’s is valued at $16.5 Billion. Even they are planning to go Public in Q2 2022. Byju’s recently released a statement that it is planning to go for IPO in Q2 2022. It is aiming for $21 Billion for IPO.

 

 

Author Details:

Name: Garimella Srinivasa Tarun

Batch: 2021-2023

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gstarun/