The English-Exam Economy.
Four tests, four disclosures.

IDP's English Language Testing line reported revenue of A$410.7M, down -15% reported / -14% in constant currency from A$485.1M [IDP-1]. Volume was 1,293.8k tests, down 18% [IDP-2]. Average price rose 5% in constant currency, attributed to "price increases, and geographic mix" [IDP-5].

IDP is the only one of the four publishers that discloses India-level operating data inside its financial filing. FY25 results show Asia revenue A$569.8M (-23% YoY) — "approximately 65% of Group revenue" — with Asia EBIT A$171.8M (-40%) [IDP-9]. India IELTS volumes inside Asia were down 50% [IDP-3]. IDP attributes the decline to "Indian study visa applications for Australia, UK & Canada down 49% vs FY24", sourced to those three governments' published visa data [IDP-4].

The same disclosure notes ex-India IELTS volume rose 2% [IDP-3] — the IELTS volume contraction in FY25 was an India-concentrated event, not a global one. At Group level, total revenue was A$882.2M (-15%) [IDP-6]; EBITDA A$153.5M (-42%) [IDP-7]; adjusted NPAT A$64.7M (-58%) [IDP-8].

Pearson's English Language Learning division — which contains PTE plus an Institutional learning business — reported H1 2025 sales of £171M vs £188M in H1 2024 (-9% headline, -3% underlying); FY24 full-year ELL sales were £420M [PSON-1, PSON-2]. Pearson stated: "PTE sales were flat, performing well against a tough market backdrop, with volumes decreasing 10%" in H1 2025 [PSON-3]. For full year 2025, Pearson guided that PTE was "expected to decline in the year" [PSON-5]. Pearson does not publish a stand-alone PTE revenue line; PTE sits inside the ELL division total.

Duolingo's FY25 total revenue was $1,037.589M, up 39% from $748.024M in FY24 [DUOL-1]. Inside that, the disaggregated revenue table discloses DET revenue of $42,006k for FY25, down from $45,640k in FY24 and $41,212k in FY23 [DUOL-2]. The 10-K's risk-factor section confirms DET "from which we derived approximately 4.0% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025" [DUOL-3]. DET is accepted by over 6,100 education programs, including over 5,300 higher-education programs, as proof of English proficiency [DUOL-4].

ETS's most recent publicly summarised year (FY2024) shows ~$1.1B revenue with $22.3M net income [ETS-1]. In February 2026, Poets & Quants reported that ETS is exploring a sale of GRE + TOEFL at an asking price of about $500M, with named potential buyers including Hillhouse Capital, Nexus Capital, Veritas Capital, and Martin Basiri [ETS-2]. The same report notes GRE candidate volumes fell from "more than 350,000" in 2020-21 to "below 200,000" in 2024-25 [ETS-3]; ETS does not publish year-by-year TOEFL test-taker counts in equivalent public form.

Pearson, ETS and Duolingo do not break out India-specific revenue. Pearson's H1 2025 commentary attributes PTE volume softness to "elections on immigration rates in 2025" without country attribution [PSON-5]. Duolingo's FY25 10-K discloses DET totals only at the global level [DUOL-2]. ETS does not publicly disclose TOEFL test-taker counts by country.

The publisher fact pattern for an Indian household: IDP has disclosed that India is the largest single contributor to its FY25 ELT revenue decline; the three remaining publishers do not disclose India revenue at all. Pearson FY25 ELL division contraction and Duolingo's -8% DET revenue YoY [DUOL-2] are reported at global level only.

The relevant Indian per-capita reference is the National Statistical Office's Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2022-23: average MPCE was ₹3,773 in rural areas and ₹6,459 in urban areas [HCES-1]. A single IELTS sitting at ₹19,000 is therefore approximately 5.0 months of rural MPCE or 2.9 months of urban MPCE; a DET sitting at ₹6,200 is approximately 1.6 months of rural MPCE or 1.0 months of urban MPCE.

What publishers do not disclose: per-test unit cost or per-test contribution margin for any of the four tests, in India or globally. IDP's group-level FY25 commentary attributes ELT margin compression to "source country mix and removal of China royalty" [IDP-1]; that is the closest any publisher comes to an India-cost-structure footnote. Duolingo's 10-K does not disclose DET unit economics. Pearson does not disclose PTE-only revenue. ETS does not separately disclose TOEFL margin. Any per-test margin number stated in industry commentary is therefore inferred and not a publisher disclosure.

Three of the four publishers reported softer English-exam volumes or revenue in their most recent fiscal year: IDP IELTS volume -18% / revenue -15% [IDP-1, IDP-2]; Duolingo DET revenue -8% from $45.640M to $42.006M [DUOL-2]; Pearson PTE volume -10% in H1 2025 with FY25 PTE guided to decline [PSON-3, PSON-5]. The exception at the group level is the total Duolingo company, whose revenue grew 39% [DUOL-1] driven by the subscription and IAP lines, not DET. On the ETS side, the public signals are the FY2024 result of $22.3M net income on $1.1B revenue [ETS-1] and the February 2026 reporting on a $500M exploratory sale process for GRE + TOEFL [ETS-2].

For India specifically, IDP's filing is the only one of the four that quantifies the country-level direction: India IELTS volume -50% in FY25 [IDP-3], attributed to a 49% drop in Indian study-visa applications across Australia, UK, and Canada [IDP-4]. The three remaining publishers do not publish India-segment data.

Full verbatim disclosures and per-figure URLs are in the companion file RECEIPTS.md alongside this brief. Where a primary disclosure is paywalled or inaccessible, the secondary citation is tagged [secondary] and the figure is downgraded in the brief accordingly. Figures explicitly derived from disclosed numbers are tagged [inferred].