Digital Badges Market - Forecast(2024 - 2030)

Overview

Digital Badges Market size set to grow at a CAGR of 19.4% during the forecast period 2020-2025, estimated to reach $292.2 million by 2025. Digital badges are popularly known as e-badges or singularly as e-badge, indicates skill earned in a learning environment. The growth in the adoption of online learning by the employees to build professional development along with awareness of people about the recognition of learning accomplishments’ through digital credentials is projected to propel the growth of the digital badges industry.

Key Takeaways

• North America dominates the digital badges market share owing to increasing demand from educational institutions and corporations. They provide these electronic badges as a reward to the candidates, which replicates their engagement with educational networks in learning and developing emerging technology.
• The growing prominence of academic institutions, because of strong government support in developed countries, to provide online learning services and certification is likely to aid in the digital badges market growth in respective regions.
• Increasing integration of platform offering digital certification as it is beneficial in virtual and online learning environments, which capture the learning path and history and contribute to the growth of the digital badges market.

Offering - Segment Analysis

Platform segment occupied the largest share in the global digital badges market size in 2018. The rise in the integration of the platform with the existing Learning Management Systems (LMS) is anticipated to be the major driving factor which is boosting the share of platform offering in the digital badges market. This is also driven by the implementation of many platforms’ shareability feature by the End users as it enables the learner to share badges to different social networks and over emails as email signatures; embed them in websites; and integrate with the virtual learning environments, ePortfolio, blogs, and curriculum vitae.

End-User - Segment Analysis

Academic segment has been elevating as the primary market for digital badges. This is largely due to an increase in promoting credentials as a way for teachers and interested candidates to gain professional learning in discrete topics using varied practices. Additionally, government support to universities and educational institutions is paving a way to leveraging innovative developments in education technology which involve more students. This, in turn, expands the presence of these educational trusts internationally and also avoid campus congestion.  Moreover, the digital badging initiative in academic institutions is getting off the ground, and will further enhance the future career of students. This is thereby driving digital badges market demand during the forecast period.

Geography - Segment Analysis

North America dominated the digital badges market share, accounts for more than 40%, followed by Europe and APAC. This is because of the increasing number of collaborations among educational institutions and rapid technological advancements. Furthermore, growing demand for specific skills among individuals and their footsteps towards adopting authentic digital badges will drive the market. An increase in the presence of the number of firms that make use of the digital badge technology is also fuelling the digital badges market growth. 

Drivers – Digital Badges Industry Outlook

• Predominance of online education

Rapid pace transformation in the online education industry is visible through the mounting adoption rate of social and digital learning. Digital badges are setting up a benchmark in online education. As of now, many online educational providers especially in the U.S. and Europe are providing digital badges as a token of course completion. In addition to this, these badges are not only motivating the learners but also assisting in the creation of a competitive environment for skills accomplishment in the education industry.

• Mandate of employee’s professional development in this contemporary world

Companies are showcasing their interest in enhancing the professional development of their employees by investing a significant amount into educational training initiatives. Majorly companies such as IBM, SAS, Oracle, and SAP have launched professional development programs to engage the employees in a process of continuous learning and development. For this, the digital badge system stands as an ideal solution in recognizing the employee skills in a transparent manner, which helps for professional development.

Challenges – Digital Badges Industry

• Budget Constraints in Implementing Digital Badges

Lack of IT infrastructure in developing countries hampers the growth of digital badges in educational institutions. For instance, it is evident in Africa, lack of proper IT infrastructures and connectivity solutions resulted in imposing a restriction to adapting digital badges. Budget constraints to implement digital learning solutions in educational institutions are acting as a limitation of the digital badges market. The state budget in the developing countries of APAC which is allocated to educational technologies is not sufficient to satisfy the increasing demand for online learning. Therefore, these factors are representing the challenges to adopt and implement digital solutions.

Market Landscape

Service launches, acquisitions and partnerships are key strategies adopted by players in the digital badges market. In 2018, the market of digital badges has been consolidated by the top eight players accounting for more than 55% of the share. Accredible, Badge List, Badge Craft, Be Badges, Concentric Sky, Credly Inc., Discendum Ltd., EbizOn, Nocti Business Solutions, and Portfolium Inc. are Digital Badges top 10 companies.

Acquisitions/Partnerships

• In June 2018, Credly Inc. acquired Pearson’s Acclaim by funding an amount of $11.1 million to manage and issue digital badges. It is aimed to provide an open badge service which supports academic institutions and professional organization to issue digital credentials.
• In February 2018, Naylor Association Solutions announced a partnership with Credly Inc., a digital credential service provider. The goal of this partnership is to deliver an optimal solution for managing, tracking, and issuing digital credentials, particularly in Naylor’s Career Center solution. For this, Credly helps to verify member skills and competencies, distribution of secured digital credentials & open badges, along with gain knowledge regarding data and insights in an organization.