Korea’s edtech startups defend against global giants with AI

South Korea’s major online adult education platforms improved their earnings powered by classes on artificial intelligence, defying concerns over the expansion of global giants such as Coursera Inc. and Udemy Inc. in the domestic market.

Local adult education startup Day1 Company Inc. said on Monday its company-in-company Fast Campus has sold more than 1 million online courses thanks to the growing popularity of AI classes.

Fast Campus’ online AI courses generated revenue of 2.3 billion won ($1.7 million) last year, more than triple 700 million won in 2022, as the number of such courses soared by 272%, according to Day1.

“AI courses have become the company’s core growth engine,” said a Fast Campus official.

“We are providing various classes including basic courses such as deep learning, computer vision and natural language processing, as well as those for projects and employment,” the official said, adding the company nearly trebled such courses to 110 this year from 40 in 2022.

TEAMSPARTA, TALING

TeamSparta Inc., a coding education startup, introduced tracks specializing in AI to meet growing demand. Its sales more than doubled to 14 billion won in the first quarter from 6.1 billion won a year earlier.

About 60% of its corporate clients have taken AI courses so far this year. The startup’s survey showed courses on AI and generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) were favored with 26% of office workers wanting these subjects most. For developers, courses on AI ranked No.2 with 35.1% after classes for designer capabilities with 40%, according to the poll.

“Many companies want to increase employee productivity with AI, but they have no idea how to do that,” said an education platform operator official. “It is a huge opportunity for professional education platforms."

The trend helped Taling Inc., a local adult education platform, turn to the black as its sales hit a record high of 6.3 billion won in the first half thanks to strong growth in business with corporate clients.

GLOBAL GIANTS

South Korea’s online adult education platform sector had been expected to lose growth momentum as global behemoths made inroads into the country.

Udemy, the global major education platform with 64 million users worldwide, joined hands with Woongjin ThinkBig Co., a leading South Korean education service provider, to launch businesses in the country.

Coursera, one of the most popular online learning platforms with 129 million registered learners, offers some 4,400 courses in Korean.

Domestic adult education service providers offered customized AI classes to deal with such moves by global giants, industry sources in Seoul said.

“Korean adult education customers require professional courses with details for new jobs, which foreign players do not provide,” said one of the sources.

Write to Eun-Yi Ko at koko@hankyung.com
 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.