Globally, demand for student placement increased by 53% compared to the first half of 2022, and the student placement pipeline also seems to be recharging, with applicants up 71% in Australia and New Zealand.

In total, English Language Testing revenue increased by 10% in the first six months of 2023 to $285.4m, student placement worldwide to $172.8m from $106.2m and English Language Teaching from $8.7m to $15.7m.

Revenue from Digital Marketing and Events increased to $26.5m from $23.8m.

“While all our destination countries performed well, the reopening of Australia’s borders in late 2021 triggered a strong recovery, indicating the underlying attractiveness of Australia as a study destination,” IDP’s CEO Tennealle O’Shaugnessy commented.

“As we continue our focus on enhancing our customer experience, this period saw the IELTS partners introduce IELTS Online in more than 40 countries in addition to expanding our physical global test centre network,” O’Shaughnessy added.

IDP acquired the Indian IELTS business in 2019 from British Council for £130 million.

While growth volume led to an 11% revenue increase from IELTS, a price augmentation set in the financial year also made an impact, from $266m and $280m.

Most countries began to see pre-pandemic IELTS levels in FY22, gaining around 5% in test takers, which sits at 1,019,100 – 200,000 more than this time in 2022. Vietnam, Nigeria, Pakistan and Nepal saw particular growth.

Online shore testing declined slightly in Canada and New Zealand, as well as Australia, due to various factors, not limited to but including a delay in visa processing, and reopening.

“IELTS volumes in Australia and New Zealand decreased slightly as demand is limited by the number of candidates onshore requiring a test to obtain a new visa,” the report elaborated.

Canada generally saw a rise of 22% with “supply side constraints”, including those visa processing delays impacting student enrolments.

The 142% increase in student placements to Australia was equivalent to 15,200 placements, a rise of 128% on this time in 2022.

The report also included two months’ worth of Intake Education’s financial reports, due to IDP’s takeover of the company in November 2022 – and revealed a $71m cash sum was paid for the company, as well as an “additional contingent consideration up to $20.2m” paid on the first anniversary of the takeover.

General revenue at this half year point shows a net profit after tax increase to $84.4m – a 59% increase on this time last year. The general revenue increase of 26% resulted in a figure of around $502m.

When segmented geographically, Asia proved to be the dominant growth player with an increase of 30% year-on-year in revenue growth – explosive increases in revenue from Cambodia at 89% and Nepal at 183%. Vietnam also grew by 98% in revenue, as well as India have a smaller yet still encouraging growth volume of 25%.

In the same segmenting, Australasia grew by 10%, primarily driven by that explosive student placement growth. Australasia’s earnings before interest and tax grew by 4% – which, the report states, was a result of lower revenue growth than expense growth.

“The reopening of Australia’s borders in late 2021 triggered a strong recovery”

English Language Teaching courses saw a 65% increase compared to last year, with over 44,700 courses sold – schools in Cambodia and Vietnam returning to on campus classes led to an 80% increase in revenue in the region, despite some “social distancing restrictions limiting class size capacity”.

“Vietnam [ELT] revenue grew by 98% but remains significantly lower than the pre-pandemic revenues,” the report went on to say. Dividends paid to shareholders also increased by 55%.