Author | Magi
When the development of the domestic education and training industry is hindered, some education apps that go abroad are being welcomed by overseas students.
Under the "double reduction", ByteDance's vigorous education business line was greatly adjusted last year and experienced two rounds of sharp layoffs. This year, there have been some new breakthroughs in the overseas business of vigorous education.
At the end of 2020, Gauthmath, a high school math photo search app launched by Vigorous Education, was launched in overseas markets. Just over a year ago, the Google Store has exceeded 10 million downloads, and Gauthmath officially said that its cumulative downloads have exceeded 100 million.
It is reported that this app has ranked first in the education list of more than 50 countries. Even in mature markets like the United States, Gauthmath once rushed to the top ten of the list.
With the release of the "double reduction" policy, the education supervision policies in various parts of the country have become stricter, and the management of education apps has been further strengthened. Among them, the "photo search" App faces stronger supervision.
In July last year, the "double reduction" policy clearly pointed out that online training institutions must not provide and disseminate bad learning methods such as "taking photos and searching for questions" that inert students' thinking ability, affect students' independent thinking, and violate the laws of education and teaching. Since then, a number of photo search products have taken the initiative to transform or do off the shelves.
While the space left for online education in China is gradually narrowing, the global demand for online education continues to be strong. Under the epidemic, education apps have become one of the most popular service applications in app stores, further accelerating the pace of China's education apps going overseas.
1. Byte overseas test water "take photos and search questions"
Gauthmath's outstanding performance on overseas lists in a short period of time has made it the focus of Byte's overseas education.
According to the official website, Gauthmath mainly solves mathematical problems, providing 7 * 24 hours of free photo search service for middle and high school students.
Its use method is similar to that of domestic photo search software. The user needs to take a picture of the question to be solved with the mobile phone, and then Gauthmath will analyze and identify the problem through AI and give a step-by-step answer. Before the answers to each question are sent to the user, a human tutor reviews the parsing process. If the user is not satisfied with the answer, the tutor can also be changed at any time.
Tutors on Gauthmath come from all over the world, and according to its website, tutors do not need to have professional teacher qualifications, but need to provide an educational certificate to prove their professional ability in mathematics. As a tutor, you need to have the ability to answer math problems in grades 9 through 12 in 10 minutes. The tutor's remuneration is determined by different difficult questions, and the more you answer, the more you earn, and the top tutor can get up to $1500 per month.
With AI and a group of quick-solving human tutors, Gauthmath claims to help users solve "the hardest math problems," including IB/A Level/SAT/ACT/AP/GCSE/HSC and other exam difficulty questions.
This makes Gauthmath one of the most popular educational apps among overseas students.
An American netizen posted on the social platform after passing the math test: "Relying on Gauthmath and my brain to help me survive this pass... I hung up in both 10th and 11th grades. ”
Another Twitter user relies more on this problem-solving model. He sighed, "What would my math do without Gauthmath?" ”
At present, the app, which was launched in October 2020, has been released in more than 100 countries around the world, and the official website claims to have exceeded 100 million downloads, solving math problems for more than 450 million people around the world.
Gauthmath has ranked first in more than 50 countries and briefly topped the U.S. market. App Annie shows that in October 2021, Gauthmath briefly topped the list of downloads of educational apps in the United States.
However, the "free solution" model alone obviously cannot achieve profitability, and some netizens have reported that the advertising on Gauthmath has increased significantly, affecting the product experience.
On the App Store, many users gave Gauthmath a low score of "one star". One of the users left a message saying, "This is my favorite software to help me learn math, and I use it every day." But now every question to be answered is to see ads, and you can't skip it. Each ad is 30 seconds long, which is very frustrating. It's a great app, but the ads are ridiculous. I hope they can change that. ”
Previously, users needed to use "Ticket" to unlock after exceeding the limit on the number of questions. If you want to get more tickets, you need to invite more new users or buy tickets directly. On Twitter, under the keyword "Gauthmath", netizens posted various invitation codes accounted for the vast majority.
Tickets can be obtained not only by inviting friends, but also by purchasing them directly. According to Gauthmath's official website, the "Black Five Special Price" of buying ten free 20 tickets is $12.99.
In addition, the all-free Gauthmath has also launched a paid subscription, which costs $4.99 for the first month, $6.99 per month for renewal, and $49.99 if you subscribe directly to the one-year service.
2, inertia thinking Domestic "photo search" is prohibited
Gauthmath is a product of ByteDance Education. After the introduction of the "double reduction" policy, vigorous education "folded wings" and experienced two waves of sharp layoffs last year. In December, Vigorous Education announced its complete withdrawal from the domestic K9 business.
Before vigorous education, New Oriental, Good Future and other institutions have announced their withdrawal from the domestic K9 business.
Correspondingly, a large number of primary and secondary school discipline training apps have also been temporarily removed from the shelves in the rectification measures.
And "photo search" apps such as Gauthmath were once popular in China. In April 2021, among the top ten software active users of domestic primary and secondary education APP, the top four belong to the "photo search" app.
In July last year, the "double reduction" policy explicitly required online training institutions not to provide and disseminate bad learning methods such as "taking pictures and searching for questions". Since then, a number of photo search products have taken the initiative to transform or do off the shelves.
In August last year, Good Future's photo search software "Question Shoot" issued an announcement that it would no longer provide photo search services from August 5; in the same month, the online education platform Afan Question wrote in the app store application version history that "no longer provide photo search questions"; another primary and secondary school homework search App Small Ape Search Questions was also renamed "Little Ape Q&A" to temporarily avoid the limelight.
In March last year, ByteDance launched a photo search application in China - Lightning Search, which is aimed at primary and secondary school students and covers many disciplines such as mathematics, physics and chemistry. Currently, the app is no longer available in the Store.
Since then, the specific supervision measures for the photo search App have been further increased. In December last year, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued a notice proposing to temporarily roll off the production line of "photo search" apps. After rectification and reform are in place and reviewed by the provincial-level education administrative department, the filing can be resumed; if it fails to pass the review, the filing shall be revoked.
Some insiders pointed out that the function of the photo search App that has been filed generally requires real-name authentication, requiring the upload of ID card information and images, and the age is greater than 14 years old to log in and use.
According to Kasumitsu Observation, the current download page of the Homework Gang labels the app as an "Homework Inspection and Tutoring Tool". When users use the photo search function in the App, they need to upload their names and ID card information, and verify that they are parents or teachers before they can view the solution steps.
However, there are also some photo search Apps whose actual rectification effect is not obvious. Xiaguang She found that there are still some apps in the photo search can be used normally. Taking the small ape search question as an example, just select "over 14 years old" when logging in for the first time, and no other authentication is required, you can smoothly use the photo search question and view the detailed question analysis.
But in any case, the tightening of online education regulation has become an indisputable fact. In this context, some domestic educational institutions have accelerated the pace of going to sea in order to seek transformation.
3. "Ten days of classes in China can top the United States for one year"
Under the impact of the NEW CROWN epidemic, online education has flourished around the world. According to market research firm Global Market Insights, the online education market is $250 billion by 2020. This figure is expected to soar at a CAGR of 21% by 2027 to reach $1 trillion.
Under the epidemic, the demand for global education apps is strong. In April 2020, when the epidemic was more severe, the online classroom App Google Classroom received 28.2 million downloads, an increase of 21 times year-on-year, becoming one of the top ten global hot search terms for Google that year; another YouTube Kids for children, the number of downloads increased by 2.9 times year-on-year in the same period in April, and was downloaded more than 10.6 million times.
According to the EDU Guide, global investors poured more than $20 billion into edtech startups in 2021, surpassing the industry's venture capital investment in 2020, with a 72% increase.
The rapid growth of the global online education market has created opportunities for Chinese education to go overseas.
Recently, the topic related to "Gu Ailing learned the Olympic number in Huangzhuang, Haidian" was on Weibo hot search. Gu Ailing, a winter Olympic champion known as a "talented girl", said in an interview that her mother told her, "Come to China for ten days of classes, and you can top the United States for a year." Although it is an anecdote, it also confirms the strength of China's basic education from the side.
In the "International Student Assessment (PISA)" released by the OECD in 2018, a comprehensive assessment of 15-year-old students in various countries and regions was conducted in reading, mathematics and science. The assessment results show that the average scores of Chinese students (including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) rank first in the world. In contrast, in mathematics, for example, British students rank 17th in terms of grades, while American students rank only 37th.
In addition to a solid level of basic education, China's online education has flourished for more than a decade, and it is ahead of the world in terms of standardized operations and technological innovation. Backed by a set of mature businesses, it also makes it easier for online education to go to sea.
Take Gauthmath as an example, its operating model is no different from most domestic photo search questions. This set of programs that have been successfully run in China has been applied to overseas markets to test the waters, and once successful, it will once again become the focus of vigorous education.
4. What are educational institutions doing when they go to sea?
Under the "double reduction", overseas Chinese education has also become the focus of the transformation of some educational institutions.
As early as last August, shortly after the "double reduction" policy was introduced, New Oriental announced the establishment of Blingo, which provides Chinese and Chinese culture learning courses for overseas Chinese children and teenagers.
According to data from the Ministry of Education, about 25 million people are studying Chinese abroad, and nearly 200 million people are learning and using Chinese. From 2016 to 2020, about 40 million people around the world took HSK and other Chinese proficiency tests.
Based on the needs of Chinese language learning, we vigorously educate our Guagualong enlightenment, and also set up a "Fun Learning Chinese" course to explain the content of Traditional Chinese Studies in interesting ways such as animation and children's songs.
VIPKID also made its global online Chinese education platform Lingo Bus one of the key points of transformation, which currently has about 100,000 users.
In fact, as early as the introduction of the "double reduction" policy, many domestic educational institutions began the journey of "going to sea" for various reasons.
In 2018, the four ministries and commissions jointly carried out the rectification action of off-campus training institutions, and advanced teaching was strictly prohibited, and the primary school Olympiad became the focus of strict investigation. In the face of changes in training policies, Good Future announced the transformation of "discipline-based quality education" in May of that year, while trying to find new overseas markets.
In the United States, the Olympic number has become one of the criteria for children to enter elite schools. In 2019, Xueersi Peiyou, a subsidiary of Good Future, began to enter Silicon Valley in the United States and opened branches in the local area to teach Olympic mathematics courses.
The form of education going to sea is not limited to products, and many educational institutions have also achieved overseas through acquisitions and investments.
According to Google Play, the markets with the largest downloads for educational apps are India and the United States. In 2020, the Indian education app downloaded more than 400 million times, and the US market downloaded more than 300 million times.
In these two key markets, many leading educational institutions have layouts.
Ape Tutoring previously established two companies, Ape Seal and Ape Zhu, specializing in Indian education investment. At present, Indian education brand Oda Class has received investment from Ape Tutoring, focusing on the K12 business.
Good Future has invested in Vedantu in India, as well as Ready4, The Minerva Project and ThinkCERCA in the United States. ByteDance has also twice invested in The Minerva Project in the United States.
Although the overseas education market has broad potential, Chinese education enterprises are still facing a lot of survival pressure when they go to sea.
Prior to Gauthmath, Byte also launched a photo search app called Snapsolve in the Indian market in March 2020, providing students in grades 6 to 12 with subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and science.
In 2020, after India announced the ban on dozens of Chinese apps such as TikTok, Snapsolve was still operating until last year, when foreign media broke the news that ByteDance was shutting down its education technology business in India.
In addition, App Annie's education app download data in the past year shows that Gauthmath ranks 17th in the US list, which is still a certain distance from the second-ranked similar search App PhotoMath. Another similar app, called AIR MATH, was first released last July and is currently outpacing Gauthmath in the various lists.
However, compared with other education apps, ByteDance has an unparalleled traffic promotion advantage overseas. Gauthmath launched a campaign called "Put Your Fingers Down" on TikTok, which received a warm response from 50,000 Indonesian users and made it popular in the local area, which is difficult for other education apps to do.
With years of experience in online education products, matching the advantages of large traffic on bytes, can vigorous education re-open a new road overseas? Kasumitsusha will continue to pay attention.
Reference materials:
[1] "Domestic obstruction, vigorous education to force overseas mathematical shooting search new business", interface education
[2] "Stop All! Beijing Municipality plans to stop all preschool children's education and training APP, "taking photos and searching questions" will not work? Education and training company explores public business", Securities Star
[3] "Going to sea is the way out for online education?" " alphabet list