New Oriental Expects $800-$900 Million in Losses, June-Nov 2021

Chinese private tutoring giant New Oriental announced on Friday that its net losses in the six-month period ended November 30, 2021 were expected to total $800-900 million, compared with a profit of $229 million in the same period last year.

The company explained that recent losses were mainly due to the termination of its K9 business. In addition to the above figure, it did not disclose more information.

Koolearn, an online education platform owned by New Oriental, also released its financial report for the six months ended November 30, 2021. Its revenue was 574 million yuan ($91 million), down 15.3% year-on-year. The net loss amounted to 544 million yuan, narrowing by 19.3% compared with the same period last year.

As of November 30, 2021, Koolearn had 1,224 full-time employees and 679 part-time employees, representing annual decreases of 83.9% and 88.2%, respectively.

Koolearn’s business is divided into K12 education, university education, preschool business and institutional customers. Specifically, for the six months ended November 30, 2021, due to the cancellation of its K9 business, the company’s K12 education business revenue was 271 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.7%. Koolearn said it will gradually terminate enrollment of its K12 business before the end of fiscal year 2022.

During the reporting period, the university business’ revenue was 268 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%, mainly due to the adjustment of core products and marketing strategies. The number of paid students in the company’s university education business decreased from 299,000 in the same period of last year to 275,000.

In addition, the revenue of the company’s preschool education business during the reporting period was 1.7 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 62.2%, which was caused by the impact of China’s so-called “double reduction” education policy, introduced last year. The revenue from institutional customers totaled 33.7 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 21.6%.

Regarding its future development, Koolearn said that under the new regulations, the company has been actively seeking new market opportunities and adjusting existing business lines, using existing infrastructure and technology.

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In terms of its university business, the main focus of Koolearn is still to provide service for students who need to pass their postgraduate entrance examinations. The company also plans to provide new courses for students in junior colleges for further education.

In terms of livestreaming, the announcement showed that Koolearn’s goal is to establish an e-commerce platform for selling agricultural products and other products.