According to this report, the IELTS test was taken “more than 4 million” times in 2023.
Not sure how that figure is broken down between IDP and the British Council, but IDP’s most recent fiscal report says that they delivered 1.9 million IELTS tests for the year ending June 2023. British Council’s most recent corporate report says that they delivered 1.6 million tests for the 2021-22 fiscal year, but they have since ceded their Indian operations to IDP.
How does this figure compare to the past? I found a press release from 2018 saying that the IELTS was taken 3.5 million times that year.How does this figure compare to other tests? ETS boss Amit Sevak recently noted on a podcast that the TOEFL is taken about a million times a year. Meanwhile, the PTE was taken about 600,000 times in the first six months of 2023, according to Pearson’s most recent figures. Finally, I’ve estimated that the Duolingo English Test was taken about 650,000 times for the year ending Q3 of 2023… but that’s just an educated guess.