We have documented in recent weeks how WSI (Wall Street Indonesia) has decimated TBI’s market share over the past few years. While TBI has been in the Indonesian market for 28 years, WSI has only been around for 6 years, but WSI already has more students than TBI. WSI is racing towards 9000 students while TBI is at best treading water. In the past 18 months two TBI schools have closed down, while no new ones have opened. In contast, WSI has opened 2 large new schools, cementing their dominance as the premium language school in Jakarta.

Until now, TBI has at least had the consolation that the WSI juggernaut hasn’t spread outside the capital. It might have been left in the dust in Jakarta, but at least it was secure in its home town, Bandung. No more. WSI is now making a move on Bandung and has rented a premises in the upmarket Paris Von Java Mall, Bandung’s most upmarket mall. The plan is clear. Bandung’s status-mad middle-class will immediately hear “Paris Von Java Mall” and decide that WSI is posher, more exclusive and more upmarket than TBI. It will be too expensive for many students but it will be the aspirational school for those who are status-conscious. TBI will rapidly seem “old hat” and old-fashioned, and WSI will shave off a large chunk of market share, especially in terms of revenue. 

Make no mistake. WSI’s arrival in Bandung is terrible news for TBI. This rapidly fading company will still be able to offer Kids and Teens classes without competition from WSI, but a little more of its sheen will be rubbed of. They are going backwards at a rate of knots.