Babbel Opens Offices in the United States

Founder to Head Company’s Expansion in New York City

Babbel, the market-leading language learning app experiencing 100 percent revenue growth year-on-year, is now expanding, opening its first office in the United States. Co-Founder and President of Babbel, Inc., Thomas Holl, will head operations in New York.

Although a large number of Americans are already learning with Babbel and account for a substantial portion of the company's total business, this “official” entrance into the U.S. market is an important step for the company, which was founded in 2007 in Berlin and sees more than 1,300 users registering per hour. Babbel’s service, the modern, inexpensive and easy way to learn languages, was recently tailored for the U.S. market and is now available with American English as a display language. Additionally, Babbel is considerably expanding its marketing efforts in the U.S. A double digit percentage of Babbel’s revenue is already coming from the U.S. market.

“The United States holds enormous potential for Babbel, and we expect growth in the three-digit percentile in 2015 alone,” says Thomas Holl, co-founder and president of Babbel, Inc. “Babbel features high-quality content developed by a team of language professionals and offers courses specifically created for each language. Like in Europe, this approach to language learning has been well-received in the U.S., as indicated by the widespread popularity of our premium app.”

In the United States, just 18 percent of the population is bilingual, as compared to 53 percent in Europe. The fact that foreign languages in the U.S. are not required in schools or in professional life is reflected in the motivation of Babbel users: just 5 percent say they learn a foreign language for work. By contrast, 26 percent are motivated by cultural interest; 23 percent are preparing for upcoming travel; and 20 percent want to keep mentally fit. Accordingly, Babbel’s service – offering mobile, independent language learning outside of a formal education environment – is falling on fertile ground.

Babbel currently offers more than 7,000 hours of learning material in 14 languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Indonesian, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Russian. The cloud-based content can be accessed with a computer, smartphone, or tablet – anytime, anywhere. “It is our mission to revolutionize the world of learning and establish quality standards not yet met in the industry,” adds Babbel co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Markus Witte. “Self-directed language learning was a privilege in the past. We’re changing that with Babbel, and we are fueling a current ’zeitgeist’ that we observe from our users globally.”

About Babbel

Babbel develops and operates an ecosystem of interconnected online language learning experiences and is driven by the purpose of creating mutual understanding through language. This means building products that help people connect and communicate across cultures. The Babbel App, Babbel Live, Babbel Podcasts and Babbel for Business products focus on using a new language in the real world, in real situations, with real people. And it works: Studies by linguists from institutions such as Michigan State University, Yale University and the City University of New York demonstrated the efficacy of Babbel’s language learning methods.

The key is a blend of humanity and technology. Babbel offers more than 60,000 lessons across 15 languages, hand-crafted by nearly 200 didactics experts, with user behaviors continuously analysed to shape and tweak the learner experience. This results in constantly adapting, interactive content with live classes, games, podcasts and videos that make understanding a new language easy, from Spanish to Indonesian.

Because Babbel is for everyone, its team is as diverse as its content. From its headquarters in Berlin and its U.S. office in New York, 1000 people from more than 80 nationalities represent the backgrounds, characteristics and perspectives that make all humans unique. Babbel sold over 15 million subscriptions by creating a true connection with users.

More information: www.babbel.com

Published

28/01/2015

New York

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