Some Awards
1. Awarded 'The Best Education Startup' on the Crunchies 7th annual event.
2. Voted App of the year 2013 by Apple
Subscribers
As of January 2014 it has 25 million users, out of which about 12.5 million are active.
Business Potential
Duolingo uses a unique win-win model of business. It provides the application completely free of cost while recovering its money from web based translations.
It also has plans of launching a $20 English Language Proficiency Test. Duolingo estimates that annually 30 Million job seekers and students need to take a language proficiency test. However the current available tests charge almost 10 times as much as Duolingo. An independent study found that scores on the new Duolingo English test are stable, reliable, and substantially correlated with the TOEFL iBT.
Duolingo does not aim to serve advertisements or sell its customer data base at any point in time. To check for the profitability of the business, it is necessary to look not at the language learning component but the language translating component where it makes money.
Duolingo's profitability would depend on two things -
1. How big is the translation service market
2. How well does the crowd-sourced translation platform deliver. Let us inspect both these aspects in some detail -
The translation market -
According to studies by Common Sense Advisory, a translation industry think tank which estimated the size of the industry to be $33.5 billion in 2012. According to a report by IbisWorld, translation services are expected keep on growing and reach $37 billion in 2018. Thus there seems to be no bottleneck at the translation market side.
Translation Quality -
Following is a snapshot from Technology review, comparing the translations done using various methods - humans and software. It goes on to prove that the translations done by the crowd sourced platform Duolingo are just short of professional human translations. Thus Duolingo might expect greater sales in the years to come.
1. Awarded 'The Best Education Startup' on the Crunchies 7th annual event.
2. Voted App of the year 2013 by Apple
Subscribers
As of January 2014 it has 25 million users, out of which about 12.5 million are active.
Business Potential
Duolingo uses a unique win-win model of business. It provides the application completely free of cost while recovering its money from web based translations.
It also has plans of launching a $20 English Language Proficiency Test. Duolingo estimates that annually 30 Million job seekers and students need to take a language proficiency test. However the current available tests charge almost 10 times as much as Duolingo. An independent study found that scores on the new Duolingo English test are stable, reliable, and substantially correlated with the TOEFL iBT.
Duolingo does not aim to serve advertisements or sell its customer data base at any point in time. To check for the profitability of the business, it is necessary to look not at the language learning component but the language translating component where it makes money.
Duolingo's profitability would depend on two things -
1. How big is the translation service market
2. How well does the crowd-sourced translation platform deliver. Let us inspect both these aspects in some detail -
The translation market -
According to studies by Common Sense Advisory, a translation industry think tank which estimated the size of the industry to be $33.5 billion in 2012. According to a report by IbisWorld, translation services are expected keep on growing and reach $37 billion in 2018. Thus there seems to be no bottleneck at the translation market side.
Translation Quality -
Following is a snapshot from Technology review, comparing the translations done using various methods - humans and software. It goes on to prove that the translations done by the crowd sourced platform Duolingo are just short of professional human translations. Thus Duolingo might expect greater sales in the years to come.
Additionally, there is also the $20 language proficiency test option. Whether such a test would be acceptable as a standard could only be proved with time. However Duolingo seems to be an idea whose time has come. Considering the founders, the investors, the educational and the business prospects of Duolingo, I would definitely advise positively for an investment in Duolingo.