How Wall Street English Brought the World Closer in 2019
New centers, additional regions marked for further growth, and recognition from our peers were just a few ways that the year stood out at Wall Street English.
2019 was a very busy year for those of us at Wall Street English. To some degree, this isn’t surprising, as the demand for English learning continues to undergo major growth. As we learned in our The Global English Language Report, produced earlier this year in partnership with the market research company YouGov, nearly three-quarters of the 4,000 people surveyed in Germany, Italy, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, Japan and Chile believe that it will become even more important to learn English over the next five years to improve their life.
About 1.4 billion adults are open to taking an English language course, with the biggest markets surveyed Chile (71%), Indonesia (69%), and China (59%). The key growth drivers? Population growth, urbanization, mobility and advanced connectivity.
The continued potential of English language learning was also stressed in a speech that David Kedwards, Wall Street English’s CEO, presented at the EducationInvestor Global Asia Summit, held this May in Singapore: “[Demand] for English language learning is on the rise. What’s interesting is that consumers are aware that proficiency is becoming more essential.” Adult English language teaching was worth an estimated US$28 billion in 2017 and forecast to grow to $50 billion by 2023, an increase of 80%.
At the summit, Wall Street English was honored for its innovative approach to learning, as it walked away with an award for Education Platform of the Year. The award was presented to Kedwards in recognition of the capabilities of Wall Street English Core Course.
This year will be memorable for us for many additional reasons beyond that highly appreciated award. A few months earlier, in March, Wall Street English inked a deal with Metro Development Group of Mongolia to open a first franchise center in the country’s capital, UlaanBaatar. The franchisee has an agreement in place to open four more centers in other urban areas in the region over the next four years: according to Metro Development Group’s CEO, Odsuren Badarach, “There’s a gap in the market for a more modern, innovative and flexible branded English learning approach. The Wall Street English blended learning model seemed like the perfect match.”
Wall Street English also opened its second location in Spain this year, in Terrassa, to the north of Barcelona, in Catalonia. The regions of Madrid, Andalusia and Valencia are also all priorities for Wall Street English in Spain, since together those four regions cover 70% of all English learners in the country. We estimate that there’s enough demand to up to 35 centers in those regions, as well as 15 more in the rest of the country.
Spain is clearly an area for a huge potential upside, and it was one of the countries targeted by our Development team to look for investors and partners. Other particularly strong markets visited in person by the team this year were Poland and Taiwan where the demand of English learning is incontestable and where our blended method also responds perfectly to the consumers’ requirements.
After further product developments releasing new features to continue improving the efficacy of our blended method, Wall Street English is looking with great anticipation to 2020 and all the expansion and other plans we have in store. From relatively humble beginnings in 1972, we’ve grown to over 420 centers run by nearly 140 franchisees in 29 territories, among which more than 20 new centers and a new territory openings only this year. 2020 is already looking as promising with 25 centers already planned across a variety of countries.
Here’s to a Happy New Year and holidays to you!
