Rong Luo
Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please ask your question
Thank you, Mei. And thank you all for joining us on our earnings conference call for the second fiscal quarter 2017. We continued to enjoy very good topline growth in the second quarter, driven by the high demand in all cities and supported by the further capacity expansion. Once again, in this quarter, we saw renminbi depreciate significantly against the US dollar. Despite this negative impact, in dollar terms, topline growth was 56.4% to US$271.1 million, ahead of our expectations. In renminbi terms, the net revenue grew by 66.4% year-on-year. The strong revenue growth was supported by a strong 77% growth in enrollments. The outperformance was mainly due to stronger-than-expected growth in both Peiyou small class as well as online course business. In the quarter, non-GAAP operating profit increased by 33.3% year-on-year. We saw an improving margin trend in the Q2 compared to that of Q1 as we have anticipated. Today, I will briefly review our operational progress in the second quarter. After that, I will provide some further analysis of the financials and our business outlook. Let me first recap our progress for each business segment. Small class continued to grow fast across the board. Small class accounted for 86% of total revenue in Q2 compared to 83% in the same year-ago period. Net revenue for small class was up by 72% in renminbi terms and 62% in dollar perspective. While enrollments increased by 62%, small class revenue generated from the cities other than the top five – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Nanjing – grew by 89% year-on-year in the US dollar and 102% in renminbi. The other than top-five cities accounting for the 40% of Peiyou’s small class revenues increased from 52% in the same quarter last year. We achieved triple-digit year-over-year renminbi revenue growth in 11 of our 19 cities that we entered by Q2 last fiscal year, including Chengdu, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Shenyang, Taiyuan, Jinan, Shijiazhuang, Changsha and Qingdao. Once again, the highlight for the quarter is the ongoing growth momentum in Beijing. Our summer promotion has been a great success. The enrollment growth rate was very strong for the first grade of the junior high and even stronger for the first grade of senior high. And the retention rates for these grades are also quite outstanding. Enrollments in other grades and the subjects for which we have no promotions were also strong as we experienced in the past quarters. We expect Beijing to maintain robust growth in the near future. Across China, we are very pleased with the ongoing strong growth in the enrollments for Chinese and English. We continue to provide more courses in more cities. Apart from Beijing, we now provide Chinese courses in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin as well. We provide English classes in Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Xi'an – across our ten cities. And, once again, in Q2, the enrollment growth from the Chinese and English increased much faster than what we have in math and science and we will continue to try to expand the Chinese and English to more cities. A brief update on our Zhikang one-on-one business. Our Zhikang business contributed 10% of our revenue in Q2 compared to 13% in the same year-ago period. Driven by the local demand, we opened five new one-on-one learning centers in the quarter – two in Tianjin and one each Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Suzhou. Let me now turn to our own online courses segment. As I explained on last earnings call, starting in this quarter, xueersi.com has begun to transform from an online platform of prerecorded content into live broadcasting. Many live classes have been started in the second quarter. Revenue from xueersi.com online grew 83% year-on-year in US dollars and 95% year-on-year in renminbi terms. We managed this rapid growth despite limited promotions offers such as discount and coupons in Q2 for online live classes. Online classes contributed around 4% of total revenue this quarter, flat with the year-ago period. Online enrollment accounted for 23% of the total enrollments compared to 15% in the year-ago period. Now, I would like to update you on our capacity expansion. In the second quarter, we added a net of 27 new learning centers, according to plan. In the quarter, we added 26 new Peiyou small class learning centers or 545 classrooms, indicating a 57% year-on-year growth. We also opened two mobile small class learning centers in each of Beijing and Shanghai. And in the second quarter, we expanded in cities with strong demand and high capacity utilization rates, including Beijing, Nanjing, Xi'an, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Shijiazhuang, and Qingdao. Even with this rapid rate of expansions, we’re pleased to see our capacity [indiscernible] rates continue to grow by low-single-digits. By the end of the second quarter, we had 422 learning centers, of which 291 are small class, 47 are Firstleap small class, and 84 are one-on-one. Looking into Q3, we’re planning to add another 20 to 30 new learning centers. We expect the classroom capacity we have added to contribute to our growth in the near future. Looking forward, we maintained our positive outlook for the second half of fiscal 2017. We expect our business momentum of demand-driven growth to continue and according to [indiscernible] learning center network at a healthy pace. Meanwhile, we are determined to deliver on our new education initiatives, as well as our global brand building when it comes to long-term growth and competitive strengths. Before I go through the key financial results, I would like to draw your attention that as of December 1, 2016, TAL Education Group’s ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange will change from XRS to TAL, with the company retaining the listing of its American depository shares under the new name TAL on the NYSE. We are excited to see our group name and abbreviated stock symbol unified. So, let me now review our financial performance in the second quarter. After that, I will provide some further analysis of our business outlook for the third quarter. In the second fiscal quarter, small class ASP in renminbi terms increased by 6% year-over-year due to a rise in prices in select cities in the summer term. One-on-one ASP in renminbi terms increased by 10% as we sold more high-end premium classes. Online courses ASP was strong by 30% in renminbi terms in the second quarter mainly due to the promotional offers, such as discounts and coupons for Q2 only, with the limited online live classes, as well as the transformation into the live class model. As we mentioned last quarter, we recognize revenue as we deliver the classes. And the method used to count enrollments of live class was the same as that of small class. As more students choose to take the online live classes, which typically last around one quarter, the recognition of online enrollments increased accordingly. Cost of revenues increased by 63.9% to US$151.9 million from US$80.5 million in the same year-ago quarter. The increase in cost of revenue was mainly due to the addition of the classroom capacities and the numbers of teachers and the standard increase of the teacher compensation. And also, driven by the new acquired business. Non-GAAP cost of revenue, which is excluding share-based compensation expenses, increased by 63.9% to US$131.9 million from US$18.4 million in the same year-ago period. In the second quarter, gross profit was US$139.2 million as compared to US$92.9 million for the same year-ago period. Gross margin for the second quarter was 51.4% as compared to 53.6% for the same period of last year due to expansion of new capacity and the teacher team, as well as the newly acquired businesses. Operating income increased by 31.4% to US$51.5 million. Non-GAAP operating income increased by 33.3% year-over-year to US$59.8 million. We saw an improving margin trend in Q2 compared to that of Q1 as we have talked about in the last earning call. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were US$0.69 and USUS$0.61 respectively for the quarter. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS [indiscernible] expenses were US$0.79 and US$0.17. From the balance sheet, as of August 31, 2016, we had US$503.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and US$1.5 million of term deposits compared to US$434 million of cash and cash equivalents and US$17.3 million of term deposits on February 29, 2016. CapEx for the second quarter was US$18.9 million, representing an increase of US$8.1 million from US$10.8 million for the same year-ago period. The increase was mainly due to the leasehold improvements and the purchase of service, computers, software and all the hardware for the company’s teaching facility and the network research and development. As of August 31, 2016, the company’s deferred revenue balance was US$463.4 million compared to US$239 million as of August 31, 2015, representing an increase of 93.9%. Let me now turn to the Q3 revenue guidance. For the third quarter, today, we see the renminbi significantly depreciate against US dollars. Based on our current estimates, we expect total net revenue, including newly acquired business, for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017, are expected to be between US$227.5 million and US$230.3 million, representing an increase of 60% to 62% on a year-over-year basis. In renminbi terms, we expect the projected revenue growth rate to be in the range of 68% to 70% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017. These estimates reflect our current expectations which is also subject to change. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.