Preschools, also known as nursery schools, are the educational institutions for children before they begin compulsory education. The preschool education industry is not doing well in recent years, due to the drop of birth rate in China. Meanwhile, it is also regulated strictly because of several preschool scandals that had happened in recent years. Another trend is adopting digital media technology to improve the education system.
According to App Growing, preschool apps focus on the content such as math, mind cultivation, coding, reading, picture books, stories, etc. Some of those apps generate revenue from the content and courses, and others accumulate users by giving away free content and profit from in-app advertisement.
Educational robots are the other forms of popular digital products which kids can talk to. Through Voice Recognition and Natural Language Processing technology, these robots are able to respond to kids questions. Although the form factors of robots are various, the core functionalities are almost the same. Therefore, the competition in this niche market is fierce due to the homogeneity.
Picture books are still the most popular forms for preschool children. Parents not only buy physical books for their kids, but also download digital books which are more accessible nowadays. Publishers are taking advantage of all the mainstream digital platforms including App Store, WeChat Mini Program and Official Accounts.
Overall, there are more and more products for preschool kids in this digital era. But no matter how much technology has changed our life, the content still goes first. Picture books are not outdated and still the most popular products for children. They just get digitalized and serve in a different way.
Source: The Investment Report for Chinese Education Industry, 2019
