Good morning, and welcome to the 2024 AGM of IDP Education Limited. My name is Peter Polson, and I'm the Chair of your company. It is now 10:00 A.M., and as there's a quorum present, the meeting is now open. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we are meeting today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to the elders, past and present. On behalf of the board, I would also like to welcome all shareholders, guests, and other visitors attending in person or via our online platform. Shareholders participating in the AGM in person or through the online platform will have the opportunity to submit questions to the board, management, and IDP's external auditors during the AGM.
Details on how shareholders can participate are set out in the notice of meeting and the online virtual AGM guide, which have been made available. Both documents are also available to view online and download at the bottom of your screen, alongside the Get a Voting Card and Ask a Question buttons. While we will endeavor to answer all questions today, if there are similar questions, we will answer one from the group. If we run out of time, additional questions will be followed up after the meeting. I will now formally open the poll on the resolutions. All polls will remain open until the conclusion of today's meeting. As we move through the items of business, I will respond to questions from shareholders and proxy holders. I will take questions from the room first and then from the online platform.
Joining me today, we have Non-Executive Directors Michelle Tredenick, Ariane Barker, Professor Colin Stirling, Greg West, Chris Leptos, Tracey Horton, and Andrew Barkla. We also have Tenneale O'Shannessy, our Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Ashley Warmbrand, our Company Secretary and General Counsel, with us today. We are also joined by Kate Koch, our Chief Financial Officer, who commenced with IDP last week. You can find copies of the Chairs and Chief Executive Officers speeches on our website as they have been released to the ASX this morning. I will now take a moment to reflect on the twenty-four financial results. Every day, thousands of people around the world connect with IDP for one reason: They connect with our teams to transform their lives through international education. They come to IDP because they are looking for a partner to guide them through their decision to study overseas.
So when government policy in study destinations changes, the impact on our customers' goals is significant. Yet, while many do not abandon these goals, they often need to change their plans to navigate the changed conditions. At that point, our role as their trusted partner becomes more important. We know this because, for more than fifty years, IDP has been a supporter of international students, English language test takers, and institutions. Our success stems from the fact that our purpose is aligned with our customers' goals: to transform their lives through international education. We have guided our customers through many temporary shifts in market dynamics, from the Asian economic crisis in the nineties, the global financial crisis in the early two thousands, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout these periods, IDP remained committed to our purpose and to our customers.
Like our customers, we stayed true to our long-term goals. This through-the-cycle focus and experience enabled IDP to weather short-term disruptions with prudent management to ensure we could emerge stronger as the environment normalizes. Across the course of today's AGM, Tenneale, our CEO, and I will share an overview of IDP's performance this financial year. These results were achieved amid shifts in the regulatory environment. We will discuss our strategic objectives and, most importantly, our determination to continue to improve and evolve the services we deliver for our customers. While much has been documented about the tightened visa regulations introduced by Australia, Canada, and the U.K. this year, these changes should be considered as part of a longer-term view of our sector. International education has experienced steady growth for several decades, despite various domestic policy changes within both source and destination markets.
According to UNESCO, their data up to 2021 , the annual number of globally mobile students has increased by just over 7% per annum for more than 20 years, and looking ahead, international students will continue to come from countries with large, growing youth population and education systems that do not fully serve community needs. In contrast, IDP's most popular study destinations all have aging populations, relying on international students and skilled migrants to support the higher education ecosystem, grow a skilled workforce, and maintain a strong tax base. With these market dynamics, we remain confident in our industry's long-term trajectory and have built a strategy and business model to take advantage of these growth opportunities. This strategy provided a compass to guide us through... Sorry. Is there a problem, Craig? All right.
This strategy provided a compass to guide us through financial year 2024, a year that will be remembered as another mini cycle that caused short-term disruption to our industry. Across the second half of this year, regulatory changes in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom came into effect. Consequently, the size of the global market of prospective international students and test takers has declined. Tenneale seven billion, a 6% increase on last year. From a profitability perspective, we delivered AUD 239 million in adjusted earnings before tax, up 4% on financial year 2023, and an adjusted net profit after tax, of AUD 154 million, down 1% on the previous year. Tenneale will share more on the operational highlights in her address.
From a board perspective, we are proud of the improvements we have made in our environmental, social, and governance practices and subsequent reporting. You will have noted our first sustainability report was lodged alongside our annual report and broader corporate reporting suite this year. We will continue strengthening and reporting our sustainability practices over the years ahead. In doing so, we are preparing to meet mandatory reporting requirements ahead of the implementation of the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards next year, and more importantly, managing our impacts to ensure IDP's success in the long term. This year, the board continued to focus on ensuring that we have the right skills and experience to lead IDP going forward. Over the past two years, we've appointed three new directors: Tracey Horton, Michelle Tredenick, and Andrew Barkla, each bringing a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our board.
As stated in the resolutions outlined in the notice of meeting, as part of ongoing board renewal, Chris Leptos, if reelected today, expects to retire before the end of his three-year term. Speaking for myself, it is a privilege to serve as chair of the IDP board, and this will be my last term as chair of IDP. This proactive approach to succession planning underscores our commitment to maintaining strong leadership and continuity, positioning us for sustained success in the future. Before I wrap up, I would like to acknowledge Tenneale, our executive team, and our people based in 60 countries around the globe. It has been the strategic vision and steady hands of our executives that have positioned IDP to navigate the current challenges facing our sector.
It will be this team's ability to guide IDP over the years ahead that will deliver ongoing value for our shareholders. The recent addition of Kate Koch an accomplished international finance leader as Chief Financial Officer, further strengthens this experienced group. I also take this opportunity to thank you, our shareholders, for your support and your ongoing commitment to what we do. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge our customers. The services IDP provides can help improve their lives. This is a source of pride and energizes our IDP colleagues to improve every day. I thank our customers for the trust in our teams, and I congratulate them for the education journeys they are embarking on. I would now invite Tenneale to share her report with you.
Thanks, Peter. To our shareholders and colleagues, good morning. In the international education industry, financial year 2024 was a year marked by government policy changes and increased uncertainty for students, test takers, and institutions. However, for IDP, an organization experienced in adapting to change in dynamic markets, this was a year in which the quality and expertise of our global teams shone through. It was a year we came together with a clear vision and strategy to navigate the current environment, and in doing so, we maintained our leadership position and prepared our business to thrive in a changed environment in the years ahead. Despite the challenging conditions, we outperformed the student placement market as more institutions and families chose IDP as their trusted partner. In this update, I'll discuss our key performance results, the initiatives we delivered, and the evolved strategy guiding our global team.
Before I discuss our operational updates, I want to acknowledge IDP's people. The work IDP does transforms lives through international education, and we have passionate, dedicated people across sixty countries working towards this common goal. A goal that aligns our objectives with those of our customers, namely our students, test takers, and institutions, so when I say we doubled down on our quality service offer, I mean our people acted with integrity and purpose to help young people navigate confusion, uncertainty, and challenges so that they can achieve their big life aspirations, and pleasingly, our customers recognized this. Despite the increased challenges they faced, IDP delivered our highest ever increase in our student Net Promoter Score, up seven points from last year. This shows our support is appreciated and needed more than ever.
This focus on quality and integrity sets IDP apart and will continue to elevate our industry's global standards moving forward. Turning now to our performance results. As Peter said, we passed the AUD 1 billion mark for revenue for the first time, which reflects a 6% increase on the prior year. Our adjusted EBIT of AUD 239 million was up 4%, as we maintained a disciplined approach to costs to reflect short-term market challenges. We saw exceptional performance in the student placement business line, with placement volumes up 17%, reflecting strong market share gains. Our IELTS volumes were down 18%, due primarily to weakness in India, offset partially by strong growth in the rest of the world. Our English language teaching continued its long track record of solid growth, with course volumes up 13%, surpassing 100,000 courses for the first time.
And lastly, an expanding portfolio of student placement related services was behind a 21% growth in revenue from other student placement services. I'd like to now focus on student placement in a little more detail. This year, we saw a strong flight to quality as customers saw peace of mind of dealing with the market leader in a time of uncertainty. Ultimately, the key data point that tells this story of our year in FY 2024 is this: As you can see on this chart, while industry volumes dropped an estimated 13% this year overall, IDP achieved a 17% increase in volumes. This contrast underscores the exceptional efforts of our people and the continued focus on quality that I've mentioned. This commitment to quality is evident in our strategy, where we're building a unique proposition centered on valued human connection, enhanced by digital innovation.
An example of this is FastLane, our product that streamlines the application process for students and institutions, allowing students to receive an in-principle offer from their chosen institution in real time. Last year, we helped over 32,000 students receive formal enrollment offers through this service, up an impressive 80% compared to financial year 2023. Leveraging our recent acquisition of the Ambassador Platform, we also launched a new student ambassador solution to drive peer-to-peer engagement and to create the definitive international student community. And as part of our focus on long-term strategic opportunities, this year we added 15 new offices in high-growth areas, allowing us to reach more people with our life-changing services and bolstering our unrivaled physical footprint. Finally, we were pleased to welcome 50 new higher education providers to our client portfolio. This included 23 quality institutions from the U.S., a market with strong growth potential.
The underlying message here is that as market conditions shift towards an increased focus on quality and conversion, IDP's differentiated and highly trusted business model outperforms the market, creating unique opportunities to strengthen our leading position. This is important as we anticipate international education student volumes in our markets will decline between 20 to 25% in the year ahead. However, with the combination of our expert people and leading technology, we stand ready to grow our share. I'll turn now to our other key business line, language testing. Last year, almost four million IELTS tests were taken globally. IELTS remains the world's leading high-stakes English language test. It's recognized by over 12,500 organizations, including educational institutions, employers, professional associations, and governments in 140 countries worldwide.
While we had strong performance for IELTS in many markets, we saw significant declines in India, a market impacted by policy uncertainty. We believe many students in India are deferring their international study and career plans until the environment stabilizes. Throughout the year, we continued to innovate IELTS and differentiate our product offer in language testing. From a technology perspective, we completed the rollout of the new IELTS testing platform. This provides additional scalability and flexibility for future product delivery. Notably, we focused on increasing acceptance of IELTS One Skill Retake, a unique product that meets our test takers' most important needs in showcasing their English language skills, through allowing them to retake just one of the four skill modules, where improvement is needed in only one area.
1,800 organizations worldwide, including the Australian, U.K., and New Zealand governments, now accept IELTS One Skill Retake, following its launch less than two years ago. A final point on language testing. In October, we launched Envoy, IDP's first AI-powered English language proficiency test. While it's in its early stages, Envoy demonstrates IDP's focus on combining AI and our human expertise to help our customers achieve their goals. Our key message for language testing, again, centers on quality. As more institutions focus on attracting students with the right language skills they need to succeed, our test's attributes of quality, trust, and reliability will become increasingly valued. Looking ahead now at the broader company, as will be apparent now, in my speech, it was a focus on quality that underpinned every aspect of our global strategy that we refreshed this year.
We know that over the coming years, our customers will need our support more than ever. The strategy we launched will guide IDP through this period and keep the focus on what is important: our students, our test takers, our clients, and our people. Our strategy is centered around our purpose: to transform lives through international education. With this at the core, we built a strategy focused on reach, on trust, and on innovation. We will engage with more people in more places as their trusted partner to deliver exceptional outcomes.... Our key enablers support our strategy, our diverse and talented people, our leading innovation data and technology, our outstanding customer experiences, and our respected global brands. We align our investment with these enablers and track performance against short-term and long-term metrics that measure our success.
Leading this strategy is a global executive team with a remit to drive market share gains, to innovate our products, to increase customer satisfaction, and to manage investment in a disciplined manner. I'd like to conclude today with a note of thanks to you, our shareholders. As an owner of IDP, you are part of an Australian success story that is helping tomorrow's generation of global learners achieve their goals. Our customers and our families spend years planning their international education. Current challenges do create obstacles, but they do not extinguish the spark our customers have to improve their lives. This means IDP's role in creating a quality experience that enables them to thrive becomes even more crucial, wherever and however they choose to study. Thank you for your support of IDP, our people, and our customers.
Thank you, Tenneale. We will now turn to the formal business of the meeting. The notice of meeting was sent to shareholders, and a copy is available online on the ASX website. I would like to summarize the proxy and voting procedures for the meeting. Shareholders and proxy holders have the opportunity to consider and submit their vote on each resolution up to the end of the meeting. Following discussion on each item, the proxy results will be displayed on the screen. Where undirected proxies have been given in favor of the chair, I will be voting those proxies in favor in all instances. Please note, only shareholders and proxy holders may ask questions. Online questions will be required to be entered on the virtual meeting platform using the instructions on the platform or in the online meeting guide.
All online questions will be moderated to ensure they are appropriate to be put to the meeting. We will now move to the items of business as set out in the notice of the meeting. The first item of business is to receive the financial report for the year ended thirtieth of June, 2024. Our auditor for 2024, Travis Simkin of Deloitte, is available to take questions relevant to the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the independent audit report. Please direct any questions that you have for the auditor through me. Are there any questions in the room? Are there any questions on the online platform?
There's one. There's one question, Peter.
Okay, thanks, Ashley.
With the current challenges around immigration, where does IDP Education see its primary opportunities for future growth? How will the company adapt to these changes and continue to expand its global footprint?
Thanks, Ashley. Tenneale has covered some of that in her speech, but I'd like to hand over to you, Tenneale, and I think you're best placed to answer that question.
Thanks, Peter. Yeah, that's working. All right, great. Thank you for the question. As I touched on in my notes, but just really want to emphasize a couple of points. With IDP's focus on quality, with our diversified global footprint and our continued program of innovation, we see significant growth opportunities across the business. Now, it's really important to call out that we remain confident in the long-term macro drivers of the industry, and we view the current dynamics as shorter term and cyclical in nature. I think an important slide that Peter put up was demonstrating the long range CAGR in this industry of 7% throughout multiple decades. That is underpinned by strong macro drivers.
If I look at the opportunities across each of our business lines, if I start with student placement, clearly in this environment, there is a flight towards quality by both students and test takers, and we see unique opportunities with our diversified business model to gain market share. I'd also call out, in an environment where supply is potentially constrained, we would expect clients to look to manage, to look to price to manage their economics, and that creates a supportive environment for our average fee as our commissions are linked to tuition fees.
On the language testing side of the business, we continue to see unique opportunities through product innovation, and we will continue to innovate the current product that we have available, as well as looking at a longer-dated product roadmap with our partners. We have developed a refresh strategy that really and it gives us the focus to navigate the current circumstances and conditions, as well as positioning us for long-term growth, and as I touched on, our strategy is really focused on three key pillars. We will focus on engaging with more people in more places, as their most trusted partner, to deliver exceptional outcomes, so we remain very confident with our expert network of people and our clear strategy that we are well placed to navigate current market conditions. Thanks, Ashley.
Thanks, Tenneale. Election, item number two A, election of Colin Stirling. Professor Colin Stirling is up for re-election as a director. Colin's skills, experience, and qualifications are set out in the notice of meeting. Colin will now say a few words.
Thank you, Peter, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm honored to be standing here today for election as a non-executive director of IDP. I joined the IDP education board in 2018 and present myself to you for re-election at this AGM. I have over thirty years of experience in international education in Australia, and the U.K. and USA, and I'm currently President and Vice Chancellor of Flinders University in South Australia. I'm also currently on the boards of Education Australia Limited and the General Sir John Monash Foundation. I look forward to using my skills and experience to deliver long-term value for shareholders. Thank you, and I'll hand back to Peter to conduct the poll for the resolution. Thank you.
Thanks, Colin. Thanks, Colin. Are there any questions in the room? Don't see any. Are there any questions through the online platform?
There are no further questions.
Thanks, Ashley. As there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Congratulations, Colin. Re-election, item number two B, re-election of Mr Chris Leptos. Agenda item two B relates to the election of Chris Leptos as a director. Chris's experience, skills, and qualifications are outlined in the notice of meeting. Chris will now say a few words.
Good morning. Thank you, Peter. I'm standing for re-election as Director of IDP today because I deeply believe in the mission of this organization. It's always a great day in the office when you can do good in the community and good for your shareholders, and that's what I think distinguishes this organization. I'm very proud to be part of it. I was appointed a non-executive director of IDP at the completion of its IPO in 2015 , and should I be re-elected at this AGM, I expect to transition off the board at some point during this next term to assist with an orderly refresh of the board.
I trained as a chartered accountant, although most of my work has been in the corporate sector and the government sector, including Head of Corporate Development globally for Western Mining, and I've lived and worked in China, Japan, Indonesia, Canada, and the U.K. I've done a number of reviews for the federal government of Australia, including a recent review of social housing, and I'm currently the independent reviewer for the Food and Grocery Code, overseeing complaints in the supermarket sector. My other board roles are Chairman of Summer Foundation and Chairman of Liverty Housing. Previously, I was a Managing Partner at Ernst & Young, where I had national responsibility for the higher education sector. Thank you. I'll now hand back to Peter to conduct the poll.
Thanks, Chris. Thank you, Chris. Are there any questions in the room? Ashley, are there any questions through the online platform?
There are no further questions.
I will show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Congratulations, Chris. We will now turn to agenda item three, which relates to the consideration of the 2024 remuneration report. The vote on item three is advisory only. I will now move on to questions on this item. Are there any questions in the room? If not, are there any questions through the online platform?
No further questions.
... Thanks, Ashley. As there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. We will now turn to agenda item four, which relates to the grant of rights to our Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Tenneale O'Shannessy. I'm asking you to consider, and if thought fit, to pass the following resolution as separate ordinary resolutions. We will start with four A, grant of performance rights to the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Are there any questions in the room? If not, are there any questions on the online platform?
No further questions.
Oh, thank you. As there are no more questions, I will now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. Item four B relates to the grant of alignment rights in the form of service rights to the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director.
Are there any questions in the room? Are there any questions on the online platform?
There are no further questions.
Thanks, Ashley. As there are no questions, I'll now show the proxy position in relation to this resolution. That now completes all items of business for the 2024 AGM. The final result of the polls will be provided to the ASX today and will be placed on the company's website. A webcast of the meeting will also be available on our website. Thank you all very much for joining us in person and online today for IDP's 2024 AGM. Thank you all for your ongoing support during the past year. I confirm that the polls will close in five minutes. That includes the meeting. Please join us for refreshments after the meeting in the foyer. Thank you.