Text | Blue Whale Education Zhou Jifeng
2019 seems to be a nodal year for online English.
It has been three years since the first online English company went public this year, and six years since the rise of online English.
In 2013, the 4G license was officially released. Since then, online mobile Internet has broadened more usage scenarios, and online English has begun to rise.
In six years, capital rushed in with money. One after another, the financing news, the valuation is higher than the next round, grabbing teachers, students and markets, and the whole industry is booming.
ITutorGroup (vipabc in those days) "got up early to catch up with the late episode", and started to do online in 2004, and it took 13 years for the whole industry to really rise. Huang Jiajia, CEO of 51 Talk, stopped a car in the street of Peking University campus and persuaded Xu Xiaoping to get angel round financing, which opened the way to teach adult English online.
When rushing towards online adult English, I found that the adult English pit was far away. Online children’s English track is the gold mine to be tapped. Despite the "burning money", the growth rate is amazing. VIPKID has set off the banner of 1V1 North American foreign teachers and became a unicorn in three years. The legendary customer acquisition cost is as high as 8,000-10,000 yuan, which has attracted the attention of the whole market.
"Online 1-to-1 scale is not economical, only small classes can balance the cost and delivery", "Double-qualified courses may be the right way" … Everyone is crossing the river by feeling the stones, and many people think that their own model can successfully save the online English track.
What new changes have taken place in the online foreign teacher market after welcoming the winter of education capital and bidding farewell to the crazy development of the past? After the tide of capital recedes, who is swimming naked?
Money is harder to get than in previous years, and some "friends" have fallen behind.
Winter has indeed come.
Compared with previous years, the investment and financing situation of online English has been greatly reduced. Except for going public or being merged, there are only 14 or 15 companies that have obtained financing this year-money is more difficult to get than before. In the past few years, online English has been heated up, and the valuation is high. In 2019, the capital that wants to enter the market is also more cautious. The fever of hot money has gone down, and it has become a consensus to live.
The most striking thing about online English this year is the E-round financing of VIPKID, which was led by Tencent. However, this financing is also quite bumpy, and news of divestment has been reported several times; There is almost no large amount of investment after the D round, and most of them are early financing of some start-ups such as Pre-A round and A round.
This year, online English companies have also "landed", and the seeds sown in 2013 should be harvested six years later. The online English track has opened the road to asset certification, and PE/VC have also ushered in the opportunity to quit. For example, Da Da English, which had previously competed with VIPKID, came to another fork in the road. The eye check shows that the actual controller has become Zhang Bangxin.
(Equity information of Tianyan Chadada English)
IPO is another model. From the situation in 2019, this exit road is not smooth, and several companies that have reported IPO news have no follow-up. ITutorGroup was eventually invested by Ping An and incorporated into its ecosystem.
In the fierce competition, online English market resources and traffic gradually concentrate on the head. A number of relatively mature players have emerged, such as VIPKID, 51Talk, iTutorGroup and so on.
Of course, there are also many friends who have fallen behind. You don’t run fast at first, but you can win in the end; And overtaking in corners may not necessarily win.
In May 2018, today’s headlines entered the online one-on-one track, and gogokid was launched in a low-key manner. Its official website shows that it provides one-to-one courses for children aged 4-12, which are purely North American teachers and foreign teachers. Gogokid refers to VIPKID in both mode and curriculum system. However, a year later, gogokid did not seem to exert too much force on the recognized traffic advantage. On the contrary, there were frequent internal changes, and layoffs broke out in April this year.
Under the cold winter of educational capital, no one can do it once and for all.
Three major changes in online English industry
The online English track of "Winter Swimming" has to survive in change.
After a year’s observation, Blue Whale Education found several major changes in the online English industry:
First, with the continuous verification of the market model, online adult English has been fleeing, but junior English has begun to rise; Second, the market sinking is accelerating, and the third, fourth and fifth tier cities have become new battlefields; Third, the mode discussion is no longer, and each family practices internal strength to improve operational efficiency.
1. Online adult English is constantly fleeing, and junior English is beginning to rise.
According to the statistics of Blue Whale Education, there is no adult English company among more than a dozen companies that received financing in 2019. In fact, several institutions of all in Adult English were all transformed into children’s English.
Under the strong man’s broken wrist, Companion English got the C round of financing. After 51Talk comprehensively transformed children’s English, the loss was shrinking.
Relying on the fluency of "AI+ Education" listing, the stock price has been falling all the way. In the latest quarterly financial report, it is fluent that the loss has doubled to 210 million yuan, and the growth of paying users has almost stagnated.
The reason is that the growth rate of adult language training market is far behind that of children’s English. Adults have a strong purpose in learning language, short learning cycle, short online immersion time, fragmented preferences and diversified learning needs, which determine that their ability to renew fees and rigid needs are far less than those of teenagers.
In adult language training, the participants showed a rapid unilateral decline, from 174,000 in 2013 to 66,000 in 2019, with an average annual decline of 15%.
The online adult English track is constantly fleeing. At the same time, among the nearly ten financing events this year, there are still three early financing events, all of which are online enlightenment English.
In other words, the opportunity of online English is still there.
Even leading players like VIPKID have a very limited share. The field of education and training is different from other fields, and there is no winner. However, the highland of online 1V1 high-end market has been occupied, and enterprises need to provide sufficiently differentiated products and services to gain a firm foothold.
Early childhood enlightens English as a game breaker. Children’s English learning in China tends to be younger. The average age of students in first-tier cities is about 6 years old, and the average age of students in second-tier cities is 6.5 years old. More and more parents begin to think about English education before their children are 3 years old.
Young children don’t need live classes, which makes the guest unit price low and the running light. Parents don’t need to spend a lot of energy and cost to think about whether to buy courses or not. Therefore, the intensity of marketing is relatively much smaller, and the cost of marketing and customer acquisition is low. For example, after the first month of the online paid course, the Enlightenment English is said to have achieved profit.
2. Sinking the market and expanding at the right time.
If the hottest word in 2019 is "sinking", the development of Pinduoduo shows people the power beyond the Five Rings. In the case of saturation of first-tier cities, various families have targeted fourth-and fifth-tier cities, and the education industry is no exception.
In the first-tier cities such as Beijing, the participation rate has reached more than 70% a long time ago, while the participation rate in second-and third-tier cities is only over 10%. The penetration rate of online education in non-first-tier cities is not high, less than 10%-a vast world with great potential.
Guangzheng Hang Seng pointed out in the research report that the current overall pattern of first-tier cities is indeed in a relatively stable state, but from the perspective of the entire online children’s English market, the penetration rate is rapidly increasing, and the sinking market space is still expanding. The shortage of offline training resources in third-tier and lower-tier cities and the change of users’ learning style bring historic opportunities to online mode.
Avoid high customer acquisition costs in first-and second-tier cities and avoid competition with head enterprises. For example, 51Talk, which decided to turn the car around to speed up the sinking last year, achieved breakeven in its 1V1 business to a certain extent; For example, acaso, which has been aiming at third-and fourth-tier cities, successfully won the C+ round of financing this year.
Even start-ups are aware of the importance of sinking. For example, Bobby English, who just finished financing this year, mainly focuses on sinking, and the main purpose of financing is to expand the sinking market and improve the curriculum system.
In the future, sinking is still on the road.
3. It doesn’t matter the mode, but the operational efficiency is the key.
2019 is a year of ups and downs for the education industry, and the mode of online education has also become the focus of discussion in the industry.
One-to-one courses can teach students in accordance with their aptitude and strengthen listening, speaking and interest quality. In addition to the interaction between students and teachers, small class increases the interaction between students and is more suitable for improving reading and writing ability and thinking training. Large classes need to be equipped with top teachers, suitable for learning vocabulary, grammar and basic knowledge. AI is the most intelligent and efficient way, but it is biased towards practice and repetitive learning.
Which mode is the most suitable? All sides are arguing. Live classes, recording and broadcasting classes, dual-teacher courses, and AI assistance seem to be defining online education.
Looking at the enterprises that can survive in 2019, it seems that the debate about which existing model has been reduced. They are all studying how to standardize teaching, how to personalize teaching, how to refine services, and begin to pay attention to profit model and cost structure. Previously, the online 1-to-1 model of VIPKID was once rumored that "the cost of each customer acquisition is as high as 8,000-10,000 yuan", but its founder Mi Wenjuan recently said in an open dialogue that the average cost of a single customer acquisition of the company is now 4,000 yuan.
The essence behind the high cost of obtaining customers is the promotion of capital, and everyone wants to quickly produce a "behemoth", and one is the only one. Under the mode of burning money, the retention rate, conversion rate and renewal rate of institutions are low, and the cost of obtaining customers is high.
Nowadays, the education capital is in the cold winter, and the pure To VC model is difficult to last long. Regardless of one-on-one, personalization, large class and middle class, parents’ expectations should be achieved in the end; Secondly, refined management; Finally, personalized service, the ratio of tutors and lecturers, etc., these factors have the ultimate influence and help to Laxin and renew customers.