Who are the Key Players?

According to the Global Education Apps Market – Market Study 2015-2019, the following companies are key vendors in the Educational App Market:

Lumos Labs is the creator of Lumosity, a popular online tool that allows users to exercise their core cognitive abilities. Lumosity has received $70M in funding from 7 investors and has more than 70 million members (Lumosity Press, 2015). It is in the top 3 educational apps in Google Play and iTunes. Google Play reports that the Android version has been downloaded between 5-10 million times and has been rated 4.1 stars. Lumosity is free to download but offers in-app purchases. Lumos Labs also has a series of new early childhood apps called LumiKids.

Duolingo is a free language learning service that has approximately 100 million users worldwide and offers courses in 30 languages. Over 100 000 teachers have registered for the company’s free platform for schools. Duolingo has raised $83.3M in funding and is now valued at around $470M (TechCrunch, 2015). Google Play reports that the free Android app has been downloaded between 10-50 million times and has been rated 4.6 stars. Its iOS version also has a 4+ star rating.

Edmodo is a social learning network that allows teachers and students to connect, collaborate and share content. Edmodo has nearly 60 million users and is used 93 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S (Getting Smart, 2015) . It has raised $87.5M in five rounds of funding (CrunchBase, 2015). The free app has been rated 4.1 stars by Google Play and 4+ stars by iTunes. It too has been download between 5-10 million times. Edmodo also offers a parent version of its app.

Learn Language: Rosetta Stone is mobile app forboth iOS and Android.  It has been downloaded through Google Play between 1-5 million times and has received 4.4 stars.  Although the app is free, it offers in-app purchases. The company also offers Rosetta Stone Kids Lingo Language Game Series apps.

WizIQ is an educational platform that can be used to deliver synchronous and asynchronous courses. Four-hundred thousand educators and 4 million learners from more than 200 countries use WizIQ (WizIQ, 2015). The company has raised $8M in funding and has launched the free WizIQ Virtual Classroom app for iOS and Android.  It has been downloaded between 100-500K times in Google Play and has been awarded 3.9 stars.

Technavio also identifies Age of Learning, BenchPrep, Dublabs and IXL Learning as other leaders in the Educational App Market.

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GMSA (2012) describes key commercial players in mobile education.  Many of these players have incorporated mobile apps into their business models:

Apple has put a high strategic focus on device manufacturing (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Learning Labs) and on distribution (Education category in the App Store and ITunes U). It has put a medium strategic focus on providing services and content.

Google has put a high strategic focus on providing services and content.  For example, Google Apps for Education is a suite of free productivity tools for classroom collaboration and is available on any device. Google has also developed Google Play for distributing Android apps and has put a medium strategic focus on device manufacturing (Android phone and Chromebook).

Microsoft has also put a high strategic focus on providing services and content. Cloud-based Office 365, for example, works across platforms and devices and is expanding into educational settings (Microsoft Education, 2015).  The company has put a medium strategic focus on manufacturing devices such as the Surface and Lumia.

Pearson has put a high strategic focus on providing services and content, producing over 100 apps for learners. Pearson is a leader in e-textbooks and has developed many apps to accompany its browser-based eText products. While it is also a strong distributor, the company has put little strategic focus on device manufacturing.

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