Rong Luo
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please ask your question
Thank you, Mei. And thank you all for joining us on our earnings conference call for the third fiscal quarter of 2016. We have very strong third quarter on our top line and our bottom line also performed as what expected. In RMB terms, the net revenue grew by 49% year-on-year and in dollar perspective the growth was 43% to $142.2 million, both exceeding our anticipation. Revenue growth was primarily driven by an outstanding to 57, 5-7, a big rose in our key enrollments. The growth was again broadest across cities, a particular highlight for us was turnaround of solid growth in Beijing. We continue to invest in our future growth, year-to-date, our learning center capacity has expanded by 40%, 4-0, over a year ago period. Today, I will briefly review our operational progress in the third quarter. After that, I will provide some further analysis of the Q3 financials and our business outlook. Small class accounting for 85%, 8-5, of revenue compared to 82% in the same year ago period. Net revenue for small class was up by 54%, 5-4 in RMB terms and 48% in dollar perspective, the enrollments increased by 56%, 5-6. In RMB terms in nine of the other cities we achieved triple digit revenue growth, which cities are Nanjing, Wuhan, Suzhou, Chongqing, Shenyang, Shijiazhuang, Qingdao and Changsha. Peiyou small-classes revenue contributed of the cities also the top five was 34%, an increase from 26% in the same year ago period, showing the higher growth dynamics in other cities. The revenue growth of cities all that are top five cities was 98% in RMB terms, 9-8, in a quarter. Meanwhile cities outside Beijing and Shanghai contributed 59%, 5-9, of small class revenue compared to 51% same quarter last year. Let me update you on Beijing's small-class performance. We are already pleased that we have managed to generate the vigorous growth in Beijing enrollments in all subjects sizes [ph] following our targets summer promotions. We are excited that our limited offers our very effect way to win market share as the market leader with a strong brand in Beijing. In effect, our limited price offers therefore accelerated the process of consolidation in the market. Meanwhile, our English and Chinese classes also progressed quite well and currently enrollments are trending as expected. We believe we can sustain a robust enrollment driven growth in Beijing in the coming quarters. Turning briefly to our One-on-One business. One-on-One contributed 11% of our revenue in Q3, compared to 14% in the same year ago period. We exchanged 10 One-on-One learning centers in Guangzhou to Tianjin [ph] Education. Following the agreements back in June 2015, you remember last quarter I stated that this transaction will not have much material impact on our P&L, as worldwide what's theoretically low margin business in our revenue from this 10 centers was 11% of One-on-One business in Q2. That this pass of our One-on-One component in Guangzhou is a special case. Is that Guangzhou one-on-one business we are planning to retain our One-on-One learning centers in other cities and continue to expand our presence where needed. Let me turn to our online courses segment, which remains one of our fastest growing sectors with 54%, 5-4, year-over-year revenue growth. Online courses xueersi.com contributed to 4% of total revenue this quarter similar with the year ago period. Online enrollments also increased to an all time high of 21% of the total enrollments this quarter worth of 19% in the same year ago period. We continue to expand classroom capacity to support the strong demand for our tutoring services. We opened 16, 1-6, new small class learning centers in Guangzhou entering other cities, and two One-on-One learning centers during the third quarter. In December we also opened another 7 new small class learning centers in Guangzhou and other cities. We will add more learning centers in the remainder of the fiscal year. We also closed six more class learning centers and four One-on-One learning centers besides the 10 in Guangzhou in line with our long-term adjusted to build a net of larger size centers with co-efficiency and capacity fulfillment rate Meanwhile, in the third quarter we entered five new cities with one center each. By the end of the third quarter our learning center network had 301 learning centers of which 227 as small class and 74 are One-on-One. Importantly, in the quarter we have entered five new cities. According to our schedule we are going to enter lot more city in the fourth fiscal quarter with years of successful experience in city expansion, as our track record we will maintain a stable expansion pace going forward. Let me now update on notable progress in the investment area, particularly on the ongoing acquisition of Firstleap Education, which offers all subject to tutoring services in English in China to children between 2 to 15 years old. The integration is proceeding smoothly. We are very pleased with the whole Firstleap team that is drawing us, particularly in Beijing and Nanjing where this show as immediate synergies. Given with positive results, we believe that we can finalize for acquisition ahead of schedule. We will start to consolidate the financial statement of Firstleap Education beginning in the month February. Since this is the month in which we have the nationwide spring festival holidays, the P&L impact for the consolidation of the Firstleap will be very minimal. Firstleap was almost breakeven in the most recent quarter with this business to become profitable within two to three years with a profit margin of between 10% to 20%. To summarize, we continue to enjoy solid top line growth as the amount for our tutoring services is robust and widely spread across cities. We are pleased to see the turnaround of enrollment driven growth in Beijing. And we believe that our gains in market share in Beijing are contributing to the market consolidation. The 40% year-to-date increase in learning center capacity is demand driven and also firm based for our continued long-term growth. Meanwhile, we are very pleased with this most ongoing integration of Firstleap which needs to be complement our business model of tutoring services for the core K-12 students. The revenue consolidation of Firstleap underscores that will the right structure of making fewer, but larger investments. They are well timed, well aligned and we are focus on education services aim at our K-12 segment. Lastly, we announced a minority investment in Knewton, a global leader in adaptive learning. In addition we have signed a letter of intent to incorporate Knewton's adaptive platform in TAL's online learning environment. Knewton provides students with tailored recommendations for exactly what to study, teachers with analytics to better support our student, and publishers with content insights to develop more effective products. Knewton powers adaptive content to make specific, real-time recommendations for each student based on how the student learns, what she has already mastered, goals she has set with her teacher, and what works best for similar students. Knewton has provided more than 15 billion learning recommendations to more than 10 million students. Its platform currently powers the adaptive learning products for many of the worth largest education companies. We are very pleased to invest and where is Knewton, because the ongoing advances in the education technology have created unprecedented – new possibilities to individualize and dynamically adjust the online learning experience. TALs cooperation with Knewton is based on a shared commitment on to the future of education through the integration of technology, Internet and education on a global scale. Now let me go over some financial points, I will like highlight. In the third quarter the net revenue was up by 43% even with the net impact of the further depreciation of RMB against dollar. In RMB terms the growth was 49% year-on-year. Fiscal year to date, the revenue was up by 43% in US dollar and 45% in RMB terms. The ASP for our small class was almost flat in RMB terms during the third quarter, mainly because we had more revenue contribution from other cities, where price is lower than the same price in Beijing and Shanghai. We expect to take price - increase for small class in some major cities next year, including Beijing and Guangzhou and some other places. Our pricing capacity remains strong due to other market share gains across wide geography network. GAAP and non-GAAP cost of revenue increased by 50% to US dollar US$73.4 million from US$49 million in the same year ago period. As I mentioned in the last call, we increased more class room capacity significantly in the third quarter. We added 467, 4-6-7, new class rooms, as compared to 64 in the third quarter last year. Typically it takes around two quarters for the new class room capacity to develop. We believe that capacity expansion is critical to long-term – to our long-term top line growth. Gross margin for the third quarter was US$68.7 million, as compared to $50.4 million for the same year ago period. Gross margin for the third quarter was 48.4%, as compared to 15.7% for the same period of last year. Selling and marketing expenses increased by 27.1% to US$17.2 million from US$13.6 million in the third quarter of last year. Non-GAAP selling and marketing expenses, which excluded share based compensation increased by 27.3% to US$16.6 million from US$13.1 million in the same period of last year. G&A increased by 48.5% to US$42.6 million from US$28.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal year 2015. Non-GAAP G&A expenses, which excluded share-based compensation increased by 51.1% to US$36.7 million from US$24.3 million in the same year ago period. In the third quarter we spend US$7 million in O2O initiatives. Fiscal year today, we have spend US$60 million of the annual budget of US$22 million. The above factors combine to give us operating income of US$9.6 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 16.8%. Non-GAAP operating income increased by 22.8% year-over-year to US$16.1 million. Income tax expense was US$2.6 million in the third quarter of fiscal year in 2016, compared to US$400,000 million in the third quarter of fiscal year 2015. Our net income for the quarter was US$9.6 million, as compared to US$11 million in the same period of the previous year. Non-GAAP net income for the third quarter was US$16.1 million, as compared to US$15.9 million in the third quarter of last year. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were both US$0.12 for the quarter. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excluded share-based compensation was US$0.20 and US$0.19. From the balance sheet, as of November 30, 2015, the company had $563.2 million of cash and cash equivalents and we also have $27 million of term deposits, as compared to $470.2 million of cash and $21.2 million of term deposits as of February 28, 2015. CapEx for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 were US$6.4 million, representing a decrease of US$1.1 million from US$7.5 million in the third quarter of last year. As of November 30, 2015, the company's deferred revenue balance was $351.7 million, compared to $247 million as of November 30, 2014, representing a year-over-year increase of 42.4%. Taking into consideration, the results can change RMB exchange against US dollar, we expect total net revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016 to between $166.3 million and $168.8 million, representing an increase of 35% to 37% year-over-year, assuming no material change in exchange rate. If not including the impact from the most recent depreciation of RMB against the U.S. Dollar, the projected revenue growth rate is expected to be in the range of 40%, 4-0, to 42%, 4-2, for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016. If we achieved the RMB revenue growth of 40% to 42% in the first quarter than we will achieved 41% to 43% year-over-year top line growth for the fiscal year 2015, which is higher than our previous guidance of 40% to 42%. This estimate reflect the comments current expectations which is started to change. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.