Mobile language apps help millions learn less, more often

Benesse Holdings

21/08/2015 12:55

By Eric Auchard 
    FRANKFURT, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Smartphone apps that help 
people learn languages for free or nearly free, a few sentences 
at a time, are piling pressure on established education firms 
and setting the pace for how to make lessons more engaging. 
    Phone and tablet-based mobile products from newcomers like 
Germany's Babbel, Britain's Memrise and U.S.-based Duolingo have 
overtaken names like Berlitz and computer self-learning pioneer 
Rosetta Stone  RST.N  in terms of audience, if not yet sales or 
teaching sophistication, market researchers say. 
    Tens of millions of users are being drawn to the flexibility 
of practising vocabulary or conversation on the go, either as 
part of a serious course of study or simply a more productive 
alternative to casual video gaming. 
    "It is a matter of incremental convenience: smartphone apps 
offer a wide selection of content that is more easily 
accessible, anytime, anywhere," said Ed Cooke, founder of 
London-based Memrise, whose language apps are mostly free.  
    The best mobile apps use voice recognition, email reminders 
and insights from the psychology of mobile games and cognitive 
science to keep entry-level as well as advanced users coming 
back for a few minutes of practice each day. 
    These low-cost products are forcing a rethink by publishers, 
tutors and suppliers of classroom teaching tools who have long 
counted on charging double-digit dollar prices for books or 
hundreds of dollars for courses. 
    Established companies in the sector are scrambling to make 
their existing print, software and online products more mobile 
or retrenching to higher-end courses aimed at businesses or 
schools so as not to have to compete with free or low-cost apps. 
    The rise of mobile apps is denting sales in the overall 
market, said Sam Adkins, chief research officer of research firm 
Ambient Insight. "The language-learning market is declining in 
terms of revenue due primarily to the adoption of less 
expensive, technology-based products," he said. 
    Global sales of language tools and services are expected to 
dip 2.1 percent to $56.3 billion by 2018, compared with 2014, 
according to Ambient. Meanwhile, the mobile share should climb 
73 percent to around $14.5 billion by 2019, it estimates. 
 
    FEARS FOR FUTURE 
    Under pressure from new competitors, Rosetta Stone, which 
popularised language self-learning with CD boxsets selling 
for$200, has been restructuring to focus more on business and 
school sales rather than consumers. To catch up in mobile, it 
bought LiveMocha, a free online learning site, and created Apple 
and Android phone apps that give away a bit of content for free 
in a bid to draw intermediate users to commit to longer courses. 
    Virginia-based Rosetta's share price has plunged 77 percent 
since its stock market flotation in 2009. Recently, it saw its 
second-quarter revenue fall 10 percent to $51.4 million, with 
sales at its consumer business dropping 26 percent. 
    Berlitz, another grand name in language training now owned 
by Britain's Apa Publishing, gave a bleak assessment of the 
outlook for many established providers.  
    Chief Executive Rene Frey said it did not make sense for 
publishers to invest further in expert language content as users 
flock to mostly free content on the web, served up by Google 
Translate, crowd-sourced dictionaries such as LEO of Germany or 
low-cost digital companies like Babbel. Instead, Apa is focused 
on expanding its Insight line of travel guides and phrasebooks. 
    "Some publishers are trying to become premium-product 
suppliers. But it is very difficult for them to be as innovative 
as these technology companies," Frey said.  
    "I just don't see how much future there is for publishers." 
    The most popular mobile apps help users with written 
vocabulary or sentence fill-ins but also give them 
conversational practice, talking back to their phones - safer, 
at least for starters, than grilling by a punctilious teacher. 
    Berlin-based Babbel, whose founders previously ran a 
music-mixing software business that remains one of the more 
popular programmes used by professional DJs, embarked on 
language training in 2007 to fill an online market void. 
    It has attracted tens of million of users and has 120,000 
downloads a day of its apps, which come in 14 languages.  
     
    LESS IS MORE? 
    Babbel says it has been profitable since 2011, doubling 
revenue each year since. Users pay, on average, about $6 a month 
for subscriptions. That has made it the highest-grossing 
language app supplier in most European countries on the Apple 
and Google Play stores, according to research firm AppAnnie.   
    Chief Executive Markus Witte said Babbel quickly found that 
it was not how much one could learn in one sitting, but how 
little. "Binge learners tend not to come back," he said. "People 
who learn a little tend to come back more regularly."  
    Duolingo, the top language app globally in terms of users, 
asks users to pick a goal, from five minutes a day for casual 
users to 20 minutes daily for "insane" users, then sets them off 
on short vocabulary and sentence completion games. 
    Pittsburgh-based Duolingo has attracted more than $83 
million in financing from top Silicon Valley venture capitalists 
and Hollywood actor-turned-tech investor Ashton Kutcher since 
its founding in 2011. It says it has up to 100 million users.  
    While keeping its services free to consumers, it has yet to 
settle on a sustainable revenue-generating model, having shifted 
recently from seeking to charge media companies for translation 
services to becoming more of a resource for schools. 
    Language teachers are coming to accept the apps as useful 
vocabulary builders and for conversational practice but say they 
are no substitute for interaction with a knowledgeable teacher 
when it comes to grammar and sustaining motivation.  
    Angelika Davey, a native German language tutor living in 
Wiltshire in England, says that with the rise of language apps, 
fewer students are interested in committing to weekly classes. 
She has stopped advertising with flyers in her local community 
and instead finds students online, via social media or Skype.  
    "Students are different now. People are quite happy to work 
on their own," she said. "But they do need a port of call to 
discuss thing with when they get stuck or things go wrong with 
books or apps." 
 
 (Editing by Pravin Char) 
 ((eric.auchard@thomsonreuters.com; +49 69 7565 1235; Reuters 
Messaging: eric.auchard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: LANGUAGE APPS/