Report: Survey Data Show that the Market Outlook for Non-Textbook Products is Good, and it's Getting Better

Market Size Climbs to $15.26 Billion

SIMBA/EMR just released a new survey report on the supplemental educational products market called Supplemental Products: 2014 Size, Growth & Change.

The latest survey data shows that the market outlook is good, and it's getting better!  The fact that the overall market size in 2013 was $15.26 billion, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2012 is good news.  The fact that the consensus sales growth estimate for 2014, made by the 86 responding companies, was 6.3% is even better news.  And a close inspection of this year's survey data paints an even rosier picture than that!

The two driving forces behind this renewed market growth are the rapid adoption of digital products, and increased buying by schools as they gear up to implement the new Common Core standards.

"Looking at specific types of products, such digital offerings as online/digital content (+94.5%), software/apps (+14.9%), and computing/mobile devices (+6.9%) all showed strong growth in 2013.  On the Common Core side, gains by periodicals (+40.3%) and library books/library services (+35.2%) could indicate a shift in the methods and materials used to teach language arts and reading.  Of course the surge in assessment (+15.6%) must be related to the onset of the new Common Core tests," said Dr. Robert M. Resnick, principal researcher for Education Market Research.

The next key question is, according to Dr. Resnick, "Are the high-digital companies doing better than their low-digital counterparts?"  Looking at the series of survey questions about sales growth, and dividing the reporting companies into two groups, "low digital" and "high digital", in all cases the "high digital" companies are doing better than their "low digital" counterparts.

On the specific issue of anticipated sales growth in 2014, 47.1% of the "high digital" companies expected an increase of 10% or more, compared to 33.3% of the "low digital" companies.  The average 2014 sales forecast was higher for the "high digital" companies (+7.2%) compared to the "low digital" companies (+5.5%), and also higher compared to the overall sample (+6.3%).

Taken together, the survey data paints a detailed portrait of today's K-12 market for non-textbook, supplemental educational products.  The report contains vital information to answer the questions most frequently asked about this market by the companies who manufacture or publish or distribute supplemental products to K-12 districts and schools across the U.S., and by the analysts who follow those companies.

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