Stephen Yang
Analyst · T.H. Capital. Please ask your questions
Thank you, Sisi. Hello, everyone and thank you for joining us on the call. We are pleased to report another strong quarter during which we achieved both stellar top line growth and continued solid bottom line performance this quarter. Net revenues increased to $437.8 million, which is an increase of 26.2% in U.S. dollar terms and 33.4% in our functional currency RMB beating the high end of our expected range. Net income was $67.6 million, representing a 39.6% increase year-over-year. As you know, accelerating revenue growth through capturing opportunities across our diversified business model has been a key priority for us. Subsequently, the strong top line growth was attributable to a significant increase in student enrollments in the recent two quarters. It’s worth noting that in this year, we started to bundle winter and spring courses registrations in Q2 and summer and autumn courses registration in Q4. As a result, we saw extremely strong year-on-year growth of student enrollment in Q2 and Q4 versus moderate growth in Q1 and Q3. We recorded a 56% year-over-year enrollment growth in the second quarter followed by 5.9% year-over-year growth in the third quarter. The combined enrollment growth for the second and third quarter reached 32%. It’s also encouraging to see a continued and strong momentum in enrollments and RMB cash proceeds from student registrations in the first 7 weeks of the fourth fiscal quarter, which grew by approximately 37% and 39% year-over-year. Our key revenue drivers K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business reported revenue growth of approximately 41% in U.S. dollar terms and 49% in RMB terms. The combined enrollment growth of K-12 after-school tutoring business for the second and third quarters was 45%. This was mainly supported by U-Can business and the revamped POP Kids program, which achieved revenue growth of 36% and 52% in U.S. dollar terms, respectively. This quarter, we remained focused on strong execution of optimized market strategy, which means we are continuing to expand our offline business, while also investing in O2O Two-way Interactive Education System. In the third quarter, we added another 10 learning centers in existing cities, opened a new kindergarten in Beijing, adding a total of approximately 71,100 square meters of classroom area, which represents approximately 6% capacity expansion. We started to pilot new dual-teacher class model in select cities in July 2016, utilizing online live broadcasting to reach students in low tier cities with access to high-quality teacher resources from high tier cities. In the third quarter, we rolled out 3 dual-teacher model schools in the city of Kaifeng, Cangzhou and Qinhuangdao. We have begun to see increased market penetration in more remote areas. Turning to pricing, per program blended ASP, which is cash revenue divided by total student enrollments increased by approximately 10% year-over-year in U.S. dollar terms, or 17% in RMB terms. The increase is mainly due to higher than normal cash revenue growth of 32% in VIP business in U.S. dollar terms or 39% in RMB terms during this quarter. Starting from this quarter, we began to concentrate the registration for U-Can VIP classes in June and December, the first men’s or the first fiscal quarter and third fiscal quarter restrictively rather than spreading evenly throughout the year with an effort to streamline the registration process. As a result, we saw very large year-on-year increase of the enrollments for U-Can VIP classes in this quarter. In the fourth fiscal quarter and over the long run, we expect that growth of our VIP business will be slower than our overall revenue growth. Also, in order to improve the effectiveness and results of our training offer to younger age customers for oversea test prep, we doubled the class lengths of TOEFL and IELTS program targeting middle and high school students since this fiscal year. Hourly blended ASP, which is GAAP revenue divided by total teaching hours, increased by approximately 3% year-over-year in RMB terms. To provide a breakdown of hourly blended ASP in RMB terms, please note that U-Can increased by 1%, POP Kids increased by 10% and overseas test prep program increased by 10% year-over-year. On margin trends, we continue to make great progress by improving operational efficiency and utilization of facilities and controlling costs within the company. Operating margin increased 90 basis points and net margin increased 140 basis points year-over-year. The continued strong bottom line performance demonstrates the results of our commitments in creating sustainable long-term value for our customers and shareholders. Now, let’s move on to third quarter performance across our individual business lines. Our key revenue driver, K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business, achieved year-over-year revenue growth of 41% in U.S. dollar terms or 49% in RMB terms and enrollment growth of about 9% year-over-year. Breaking it down, the U-Can middle school high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded a revenue increase of 36% in U.S. dollar terms or 44% in RMB terms. Student enrollments grew by 10% year-over-year. Our POP Kids program revenue was up by 52% in U.S. dollar terms or 60% in RMB terms and enrollment grew by 8% year-over-year. Our overseas test preps and consulting business together recorded revenue growth of 9% in U.S. dollar terms or 15% in RMB terms year-over-year. Finally, VIP personalized class business recorded cash revenue growth of 32% in U.S. dollar terms or 39% in RMB terms year-over-year. Next, I will provide some updates on the progress we have continued to make with our optimized market strategy. We have been focusing on maintaining a healthy balance between top line and bottom line growth, while investing in the build-out of our O2O integrated education system and this continues to work well. Starting with our core offline business, as mentioned earlier, we added a net of 10 learning centers in existing cities, opened a new kindergarten in Beijing and 3 dual-teacher model schools in the city of Kaifeng, Cangzhou and Qinhuangdao. Altogether, we added a total of approximately 71,100 square meters of classroom area, representing 6% capacity expansion. For the whole year 2017, we plan to add 70 to 80 new learning centers for K-12 business in all of our existing cities. We moderately scale up the new learning center opening plan over the course of the year. As we want the better positions to benefit from positive market dynamics, we also plan to enter 3 or 4 new cities while we are adding different markets with most business opportunities. We also plan to pilot the newly initiated dual-teacher class model in around 20 existing cities and enter 5 to 7 new cities, all specifically targeting lower-tier markets. Regarding our online business, we invest approximately $15 million in the third quarter to improve and maintain our O2O integrated education ecosystem. Most of the investments were reported under G&A expenses. We have been devoted to this online business build-out since 2014, with an increase in customer retention rates and addition of new customers. We fully believe this is transforming our business and investments will bring continuous and long-term benefits. Before I go into the details, just a quick recap of our three levels of online platform. The first level, also the core of our online system, is an O2O Two-way Interactive Education System across all of our business lines. The second level is our pure online learning platform, supplementary online education products in the New Oriental brand. The third level of our ecosystem is for New Oriental to take minority shareholdings in online education companies that complements our own online educational offerings. Starting with O2O Two-way Interactive Education System, we aim to extend New Oriental’s traditional offline classroom teaching offerings to online education services. This is also an important factor that sets us apart from other key players in the market. With advanced O2O product services, we are poised to gain more market share and improve brand recognition going forward. Since its launch in September 2014, U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system, our Interactive Education System, has been successfully rolled out across all existing cities in our nationwide school network and this expansion drove positive performance. Our newly revamped POP Kids English program, Shuang You, has also expanded its coverage to 54 cities by the end of third quarter. The interactive education system has been gradually used in more and more cities. The O2O system for the domestic test prep program was being used in fast cities for some classes by the end of third quarter. And since its launch in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016, the interactive education system for overseas test prep program, including IELTS, TOEFL and SAT courses, was rolled out in 7 cities by the end of third quarter. For the second level of our online education ecosystem, we have seen consistent growth in our pure online learning platform and other supplementary online educational products. As you may have known, we announced in March that Beijing New Oriental Xuncheng Network Technology Company, which operates our online education platform, koolearn.com, has received the approval of the listing of Xuncheng’s shares of the National Equities Exchange and Quotations in China. We believe this could help better strengthen its operation and further improve our online service offering. In the third quarter, koolearn.com generates net revenue of $15 million, representing an increase of 19% in U.S. dollar terms or a 26% increase in RMB terms. The number of end users increased significantly this quarter, approximately 92% year-over-year. The number of cumulative registered users in this quarter has reached 15.8 million. koo.cn, our online broadcast open platform for both New Oriental and third-party teachers achieved around 470,700 registrations in the third quarter. DONUT, a series of game-based mobile learning app for children reported over 56.3 million downloads by quarter end. Le Ci, an English language vocabulary training app for mobile phones and tablets app reported over 5.8 million users by quarter end. For the third level of our online education ecosystem, we invest in select online education companies with the minority stake and we continue to look for new opportunities that will not only complete our own offerings, but also facilitate our own O2O integration. Now, let me walk you through the other key financial details for the third quarter. Operating cost and expenses were $380.3 million, representing a 24.9% increase year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating cost and expenses, which exclude share-based compensation expenses, were $372.1 million, representing a 24% increase year-over-year. Cost of revenues increased by 26.5% to $183.8 million primarily due to increase in teachers’ compensation for more teaching hours. Selling and marketing expenses increased by 24.2% to $55.9 million primarily due to increase in brand promotion expenses. G&A expenses for the quarter increased by 23% to $140.9 million. Non-GAAP general and administrative expenses, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were $132.6 million, representing a 20.4% increase year-over-year. This is primarily due to increased headcount at the company expanded network of schools and learning centers by about 10% year-over-year. Total share-based compensation expenses, which were allocated to related operating costs and expenses, increased by 86% to $8.3 million. Operating income for the quarter was $57.5 million, a 36% increase from $42.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP income from operations was $65.8 million, a 40.7% increase from $46.7 million in the same period of prior fiscal year. Operating margin for the quarter was 13.1% compared to 12.2% in the same prior periods of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes share-based compensation expenses for the quarter was 15% compared to 13.5% in the same period of prior fiscal year. Net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was $67.6 million, representing a 39.6% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Capital expenditures for the quarter was $24 million and this was primarily attributable to the opening of 4 new schools and 30 new learning centers and renovations of existing learning centers. Turning to the balance sheet, at the end of the third quarter, the deferred revenue balance, which is cash collected from registered students for courses and recognized proportionally as revenue after the instructions are delivered, was $760.5 million, an increase of 29.9% as compared to $585.3 million at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2016. Before talking about our expectations for the fourth quarter, I wanted to take a moment to reiterate our overarching goals for the year, which we outlined on the 2016 Q4 and full year conference calls. During fiscal year 2017, we will continue to focus on our optimized market strategy. With the current success achieved, we are confident that we have the right strategy in place and that will continue to drive additional progress and help us create long-term value for all shareholders. To give you more specifics, first, we will continue to expand our offline business in fiscal year 2017. We plan to add 70 to 80 new learning centers for K-12 business in existing cities. This is higher than our initial targets provided ahead of fiscal year and we are raising this, because we are seeing a growing momentum for our K-12 business due to the combination of our broad product portfolio, solid market demands and effective operation. We also plan to enter 3 or 4 new cities where we identify markets with the most business opportunities. Further, we plan to implement the newly initiated dual-teacher model class model in around 20 existing cities and enter 5 to 7 new cities specifically targeting low tier markets. Second, we will continue to invest in our O2O integration and the initiatives in our online education offerings, promoting the strongest products possible in the marketplace in order to continue to take more market share. While investments will continue, we believe that total spending will begin to stabilize this year compared to the large annual incremental increases in the last two fiscal years when we were building a foundation. Third, we will continue to have a top priority on improving the utilization of facilities and controlling cost and expenses across the company to drive continued margin expansion and profitability. Looking at the near-term, in terms of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, we expect total revenues to be in the range of $465.1 million to $479.9 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 18% to 22%. The projected growth rate of net revenues in our functional currency, RMB, is expected to be in the range of 25% to 29% for the fourth quarter. Lastly, I must mention that these expectations reflect New Oriental’s current and preliminary view, which is subject to change. At this point, I will take your questions. Operator, please open the call for this. Thank you.