Vietnam’s education technology (edtech) market has shown strong growth in part due to the pandemic, which pushed online learning as well as the consumer’s appetite for additional learning.
Vietnam has a population of 98 million, of which around 70 percent are under 35 years of age. Currently, it has about 17.5 million students at primary and secondary education levels, with approximately 1.7 million students enrolled in universities.
Key Points
- Vietnam’s edtech market is experiencing strong growth, driven by the increasing demand for online learning and additional educational resources.
- The digital content sector within the Vietnamese edtech market is highly competitive, with various providers offering products such as language learning, test preparation, and tutoring services.
- Foreign edtech groups are accessing the Vietnamese market through local sales agents, leveraging their strong relationships with education authorities to tap into the growing trend of utilizing digital content in local schools.
Edtech is the combination of education and technology using technological tools to facilitate education. It uses IT tools to enhance the individual learning experience.
The Vietnamese edtech market is estimated to exceed US$3 billion by 2023. According to Tracxn Technologies, there are about 260 edtech businesses in Vietnam, most are start-ups and business to consumer (B2C) businesses.
Edtech startups are luring the interest of both local and foreign venture capital funds as they bring new business models to tap into the online student consumer market. Investment deals in edtech were estimated to reach US$45 million in 2020. South Korea, the US, and Singapore are among the top investors in the market.
In Vietnam, edtech companies focus on three main areas such as digital content, learning management systems (LMS), and integrating advanced technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI).
The digital content market is crowded with service providers offering various products, such as English language subjects and game-based learning content for early childhood education, test preparation, self-study options, e-books, and tutoring service searches for general education. A notable foreign player in this segment is Snapask, a Hong Kong-based startup which entered Vietnam in 2020 and provides a tutoring app for students in education.
There are also several English teaching products for students and adults, such as Elsa or Duolingo. Some local edtech companies have also attempted to diversify their product content to other skill development areas such as Mathematics.
This aligns well with the emerging desire of Vietnamese parents for their children to develop STEM skills. CoderSchool, a startup providing online training in programming, has recently announced that it has raised US$2.6 million in a Pre-Series A funding round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures.
The edtech market for digital content in Vietnam has also attracted foreign edtech groups in the growing trend of utilizing digital content by local schools. They have managed to access the market through their local sales agents which have strong relationships with education authorities.
This article was first published by VietnamBriefing which is produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The firm assists foreign investors throughout Asia from offices across the world, including in in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, India, and Russia. Readers may write to [email protected].