IDP Education has released its fiscal results for the half-year ending December 31, 2023. The report indicates that the IELTS was taken 902,000 times in those six months, a drop of 12 percent compared to the same period last year. The report indicates that this drop was due to lower test volumes in India. I’ve written in this space about how IDP faces stiff competition from Pearson in that market. Interestingly, the report indicates that outside of India the number of tests administered actually increased by 17 percent. Good lord, the drop in India must have been pretty big if the overall volume declined even though sittings in the rest of the world increased by a huge amount.
Investors will be happy to know that revenue from student placement is way, way up. That is due in part to a 56 percent increase in Canadian placements.
IDP’s share price jumped about 15% on the release of the report, but those gains were all wiped out within 48 hours. Perhaps some of the early buyers weren’t aware of recent changes to the business of international education.
(Note that the above figure does not include IELTS tests taken via the British Council)