Pearson just posted interim results for the six months ending June 2024. I’m traveling right now and can’t provide a full write-up, but a few things ought to be quickly noted:
- PTE’s volume dropped to 546,000 for the 6 months, down 10% compared to the same period in 2023. Pearson predicts “flat to down” growth for the remainder of this year. Note that IDP has suggested IELTS volumes will be down 15 to 20 percent for the year ending June 2024. It’s a tough market for English tests right now.
- They note that the PTE “has continued to see market share gains, particularly in India and China.”
A commenter who prefers to remain anonymous wrote the following when I posted about the results to LinkedIn last week:
…if 100 students who [took] an English Language Test in May 2023, 80 of them would be for the IELTS test and 20 for the PTE test.
However in May 2024 the pattern has actually reversed with more people preferring the PTE exam than the IELTS.
This is the situation that I’ve seen in Kerala, India.