What Apple Is Wading Into: A Snapshot Of The K-12 Textbook Business

The battle for the college digital textbook market—including startups like Inkling and Kno—gets a fair amount of attention. But the K-12 textbook business that Apple now seeks to revolutionize is much less talked about outside of education circles. On top of the bureaucracy that companies have to deal with, the digital infrastructure in many K-12 schools is weak, with an average of three students for every device as well as more mundane problems like too few electrical outlets. That said, there’s clearly some real opportunity: While many assume the K-12 market is largely controlled by the three big companies that Apple is partnering with, in fact, more than half of that $8 billion market isn’t. The market is estimated at $8 billion. There are 50 million K-12 students in public schools in the US.