Edtech Unicorn PhysicsWallah Records 182% Surge in Online Course Enrollment, Revenue Soars to ₹771.76 Crore in FY23

• ByStartupStory     |    January 6, 2024

PhysicsWallah (PW), a leading edtech platform, has witnessed remarkable growth in its online learning segment, with a staggering 182% surge in enrollment for online paid courses in 2023 compared to the previous year. The company, based in Noida, reported a substantial increase in online paid orders, which rose to 24 lakh in 2023 from 8.5 lakh in the preceding year.

This surge in online learning reflects a growing preference among students for the convenience, self-paced learning, and personalized experiences offered by online education, especially in the post-pandemic era. Alakh Pandey, Founder and CEO of PhysicsWallah, expressed excitement about the continued success of online learning despite concerns about its decline post-pandemic.

Speaking at TechSparks 2023 in September, Pandey highlighted the company’s significant growth in its online business, even as students showed a preference for offline channels. PhysicsWallah operates through online, offline, and hybrid modes, with offline centers contributing 40% to its revenue in 2023.

Originating as a YouTube channel in 2014, PhysicsWallah has also experienced substantial growth on the platform, boasting 4 crore YouTube subscribers, including 1.5 crore new additions in 2023. The company’s 81 YouTube channels have accumulated an impressive 275 crore views and 20 crore hours of watch time throughout the year.

Community building has been a key strategy for PhysicsWallah, focusing on providing free education on YouTube to develop trust and a strong student base. This approach has translated into success for the PW App, which recorded 32.71 crore watch hours, 120 crore total views, and 53 lakh unique users in 2023. The average daily watch time on the platform increased to 65 minutes from 50 minutes in the previous year.

The company reported an improvement in its Net Promoter Score (NPS) across various metrics, indicating a positive customer perception. Notably, PW witnessed a surge in demand for courses in languages other than English, with a 300% increase in Hindi medium batch enrollments and a fivefold rise in the student base for vernacular languages like Marathi, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, and Telugu.

Financially, PhysicsWallah’s revenue from operations soared to ₹771.76 crore in the fiscal year 2022-23 from ₹232.47 crore in the previous fiscal. The company reported an adjusted EBITDA of ₹127 crore in FY23, adjusted for ESOP costs, Lease Equalization Reserve (LER), and one-time inventory provisioning, compared to ₹134 crore in FY22. EBITDA is a key measure of operational efficiency.

Established in 2020, PhysicsWallah has expanded into 28 test prep categories and a skilling vertical, operating over 72 tech-enabled Vidyapeeth (offline) and 28 Pathshala (hybrid) centers across India.

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