ANALYSIS OF UDEMY COURSES

Udemy is an online learning program company based in USA. Since its launch in 2010 it has
been able to capture close to 35 million subscribers for its courses and has more than 130000
courses on its platform
At Udemy anyone can make their online course and by using Udemy development tools
which helps create courses on the basis of the interest of the instructor.
The Data analysis is of 10,000 courses available on Udemy.
Type
id Course ID
Title Name of the course
url Link of the course
Num_subscribers Number of people who have subscribed the
course
Avg rating Rating given by the user for a particular
course
Num_reviews No of reviews provided for a particular
course
Num_published Number of published lectures
Price_detail amount Actual price of the amount
Discount_price_amount Price after discount

Top 10 courses on the basis of number of subscribers

 As we can see the most popular course is an MBA course with 3, 74,836 subscribers.
This is because most of the students prefer to do MBA as a master’s course due to its
high value and job opportunities.
 Also many working professionals prefer to do online MBA to add value to their
resume.
 The next popular course is for SQL (structured query language). SQL is a very
popular and high demand IT skill that is required in almost every organization. Data
analysts and even marketing managers use SQL. Companies like Netflix, instagram,
Facebook etc. use SQL to update their database or perform analysis based on it.
 Deep learning is also a very popular course among data analysts and data scientists.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning have
become the most sought after skills for IT personnel. Since deep learning a very high
rewarding skill many people enrol for it online courses to get basic understanding of
the skill and hands on practice.
 Tableau is an important data visualization tool that helps to arrange and sort data to
perform better analysis. It is a very user friendly tool and that is the reason not only
 data scientists but many managers at different organization also use tableau for data
analysis.
 It is important to note that 3 courses in the top 10 are related to data skills which
means that there are lot of emerging job opportunities in analytics and a lot of aspiring
students or existing working professionals who want to enhance their IT skills for
better employment.
 Also a 3 courses in the top 10 are related to finance which means students or existing
working professionals are learning financial skills since it is very important.
 It can also be noted that all the top 10 courses closely integrate with the most popular
course i.e. MBA, which means probably a student who is doing an online course on
MBA is also learning data skills and financial skills since these are prerequisites to
enter managerial job market.

Bottom 10 courses on the basis of number of subscribers

 The most unsubscribed course is business studies.
 Probably these courses are not as good as other courses available and the instructor of
these courses does not have a proper teaching method to make the course more
interesting.
 Also these courses are very niche for example betting basics and eBay from scratch
which most of the people would not be interested in.
Top 10 by customer rating
 These are the courses who although have less number of less number of subscribers
but the average number of rating by users is 5.
 It is important to note that since these courses have few users the rating is high but
more number of people use these courses there are chances the ratings may go down.
 Like in the case of the courses which have the most users for example MBA course
which has the highest users but the rating is 4.
 In the top 10 courses by subscribers 50% of the courses have 4 rating.

Bottom 10 by Rating
 These courses have the lowest number of user rating.
 Probably these courses do no serve the purpose for the learners and they are
unsatisfied.
 Udemy has also a 30 day money back guarantee, if the user does not like the courses
he/she can cancel the course and take the money back.
 Let us assume that these users have asked for money back which means a total of INR
23,18,020 had to return to the users.
 Note: Since the data is does not show the number of users who have asked for money
back hence we cannot prove this assumption

Reviews vs. Users

  Only 8% of the users have provided reviews out of 32 million users.
 This is a concerned area since online purchases are dependent on online reviews.
 This can be probably that users are busy and don’t feel like writing a review and just
rate the courses since it is comparatively easy task.
 Also some users might not want to take the risk of reviewing the course publicly and
then get proven wrong by other users.

Top 10 courses and % reviews received

 Here we can see that the most number of subscribed courses have very low percentage
of reviews received.
 MBA course has received only 11.11% of the reviews out of the 3lakh users.
 PMP Exam prep seminar has received the maximum reviews of 33.91% .
 For any company online reviews are very important since people rely and make
decision according to the reviews posted online.
 The more the reviews the more the courses will grow.
 The company should aim to increase its online reviews because they are key source of
driving online purchases.

Average Price and Average discounted Price

 Here we can see that Average price for the courses is INR 4829 and price after
discount is INR 489 which means approximately 90% discount on all courses.
 The question arises that why Udemy courses are so heavily discounted. One reason
for this can be to attract more number of students. Since most of the students are not
able to pay for expensive courses online provided by Coursera or Edx, students prefer
Udemy as it’s too inexpensive.
 Also the course provides certification at such a low price encourages more number of
students to enrol for the courses.
 But again if Udemy provides such inexpensive courses then how is it able to generate
revenue and sustain in the highly competitive market.
 One reason for this is that Udemy has a very different business model. The instructors
put their courses online that price it accordingly. So if an instructor is new on Udemy
and has less number of followings he/she will reduce its price to get maximum
number of users for its course and Udemy charges a percentage of the earnings from
the instructor. So it is a price war between the instructors.
Courses Published year generating maximum Revenue
 Here we can see that the course launched in the year 2016 have generated the
maximum number of the revenue for the company followed by the year 2017.
 This is because maximum number of users are from the courses published in the years
2016 and 2017.
 It can be noted that the number of users for these 9000 courses have been reducing
after 2016. This means that probably the quality if courses published after 2016 are
not as good.
  Also users have shifted to other online learning platforms like Coursera or eDx where
university certified courses are available which is of more value.
Most expensive courses
 Average price for the most expensive courses on Udemy is priced at INR3200.
 These include courses like Performance Management, Consultant’s guide to
PowerPoint, Advance Sales Analytics for decision making and Power BI , Amazon
Copyrighting and Energy risk professional exam
 It is to be noted that when on an average coursed on Udemy are priced at INR450
then why users are willing to pay INR3200 for courses on Udemy.
 One reason for this is that these courses are professional courses which means it is
bought by working professionals who have the purchasing power and who want to up
skill themselves.
 Another reason is that professional courses are expensive so probably Udemy
provides the least expensive professional course as compared to other learning
platforms.
 The course Advance Sales Analytics for decision making and Power BI has the
highest number of users paying INR3200 therefore if some other instructor puts
similar course at a bit lower price then there are chances that users will shift to his/her
course.
Courses across different fields
1. Kids
 Total 5 courses available for kids in the dataset.
 Maximum number of users are for the course Entrepreneurship for kids. This means
that parents want their kids to develop entrepreneurial skills right from school.
 Also parents who are entrepreneurs or management professionals must be enrolling
their children for these courses.
 This means that more business/management related courses for children can be added
by instructors such as PowerPoint skills, Excel skills so that parents enrol their kids to
these courses as well.

2. Mental health
 Out of 4 courses available on mental health all are related to workplace mental health.
 This means managing mental health at workplace is an important concern for many
people.
 It can be assumed that due the Covid-19 pandemic there has been an increase in
enrolment of these courses.
 Instructors at Udemy can add courses like maintaining positivity at workplace and
work life balance to draw more number of users.

3. Communication
 Here we can see that communication skill is an important aspect for students as well
as professionals as a total of 4,64,160 users have enrolled for communication courses
 50,000 users have enrolled for email communication since emails are one of the major
communication tools used at workplaces. Bad email writing can adversely affect the
organization by client reduction or miss-communication among team members.

4. Marketing
 Total of 1 million users of courses involved in the field of marketing generating
INR48 cr revenue
 Topping in the list is the course available on Digital marketing. With the advent of
online buying and increasing number of internet users, digital marketing is a growing
industry and many students as well working professionals do at least one course in
digital marketing nowadays.
 An interesting course which is the second most used course is LinkedIn Marketing.
 One reason for this can be that a lot of companies use LinkedIn to generate leads, and
increase traffic to their website. LinkedIn is an important source of recruiting talents
and brand building. Many entrepreneurs use LinkedIn to build their brand
 Another course which is quite popular among users is Affiliate marketing. Affiliate
marketing has increased with the rise of online purchases.
 We can also assume that users enrolling for digital marketing have also enrolled for
affiliate marketing.
 If we see the table the most number of courses subscribed are the courses that revolve
around digital marketing.
 Instructors providing in this course must be into huge competition due to more
demand by users.

5. Finance
 A total of 6, 10,884 users in the field of finance, generating revenue of INR 28cr for
the company.
 In these course maximum number of users are for financial concepts and Python for
Finance.
 It can be assumed that users who have enrolled for MBA and are finance aspirants
must have also enrolled for these courses.
 Since Python for finance is popular course in this field, other data skills like SAS or R
programming can be added by instructors to draw more users.

6. Operations
 A total of 94,275 users in the field of operations, generating revenue of INR 4.3cr for
the company.
 Top course by subscribers is Logistics and supply chain followed by Hotel
management operations.

7. Analytics
 A total of 135 courses with 591872 users and generating INR 31.5 cr revenue.
 Python and SQL are leading courses in this field.
  Courses offering analytics are expensive so there are chances that users who buy a
course in analytics from Udemy often want to familiarise themselves with the course
and if they like probably then buy expensive courses by universities.

8. Virtual teams
 An interesting course subscribed by 46,752 customers are on virtual teams. This can
be attributed to the fact that due to the current pandemic all organizations have been
using virtual platforms for communication/meetings. Since most of the people are not
aware of the platform and to increase the productivity of their employees’,
professionals enrol for these courses.
 Most popular course is how to manage and influence your virtual team with 22,106
users.
 These types of courses will have more users in near future since virtual meeting
platforms will be widely used by organizations in future.

9. Machine learning
 With a total of 19 courses, 99,724 users and generating INR4.5 cr in revenue.
Machine learning is a very demanding skill in the field of artificial intelligence.
 The average price of the course is INR450 which is quite inexpensive as compared to
other online platforms.
 This means that there is huge competition among the courses offered by instructors on
machine learning and that is why prices are kept so low to attract more number of
users.

CONCLUSION
 Based on the data we can conclude that Marketing courses generate maximum
revenue for the company followed by Finance.
 Maximum top courses by are in the field of IT which means that not only IT
professionals but other professionals in managerial positions are enhancing their IT
skills to sustain in the job market.
 Customer reviews are only 8%, so if an instructor/author wants to generate more
number of users he should also aim to increase the number of reviews for his course
as online purchases are dependent on reviews by existing users, they act as a reference
group.
 Data on money back asked by users is not provided.

LIMITATIONS TO THE DATA

 The data was only of 10k courses against 1.3 lakh courses available on Udemy.
 The data does not show any geographical information regarding the users by which
we could analyse which skills most are demanding in which country.
 The data did not provide the year in which the users bought the course as then we
could have analysed which