Dictionary pen to become the "second mobile phone" of primary and secondary school students?

The lexicography war seems to be intensifying.

After the "double reduction", the supply and demand of discipline-based off-campus training plummeted, and education companies have targeted education hardware at the time of roadfinding transformation, and dictionary pens have become one of the hottest education hardware.

NetEase Youdao, iFLYTEK, Huawei, Baidu, New Oriental, etc. have launched dictionary pens. The competition between dictionary pens in both software and hardware is becoming more and more fierce.

Recently, NetEase Youdao announced the upgrade of Youdao Dictionary Pen, through strategic cooperation with the Commercial Press, Xinhua Dictionary, Xinhua Dictionary, Xinhua Idiom Dictionary, Ancient Chinese Dictionary, Xinhua Post-Break Dictionary and other content into NetEase Youdao intelligent hardware.

By adding new content and features, dictionary pens are rapidly expanding the market for primary and secondary school students, replacing the tool learning APP on mobile phones and becoming the most frequently used learning hardware.

<h4>The user base has expanded from adults to primary and secondary school students</h4>

The sinking from college student users to primary and secondary school students is the most distinctive feature of the evolution of dictionary pens.

Wu Yinghui, senior vice president of NetEase Youdao, once told 21st Century Business Herald, "When Youdao Dictionary Pen was first launched, the proportion of adult users was relatively high. "After all, adults are more keen to buy the latest digital products. And the original function of the dictionary pen was to scan English readings for automatic translation.

Any domestic education product needs to be extended from adults to K12 users in order to have a larger market and imagination space. NetEase Youdao itself is so, the online education company initially provided adult vocational education products, and then its Youdao boutique course launched a primary and secondary school live online course, the scale of revenue exploded rapidly, and has surpassed the adult business.

Dictionary pens are also being extended to K12 users. Youdao Dictionary Pen first launched a version that focuses on K12 and even younger users, the interface is childlike, and the appearance design is customized with Frozen.

The more important action is to add content and functionality. In terms of content, in September this year, NetEase Youdao announced a cooperation with the People's Education Publishing House to load the English textbook content of the People's Education Publishing House into the dictionary pen. Recently, it has been loaded into the Commercial Press's "Xinhua Dictionary" and other dictionaries.

"We got feedback when we did the user survey, and the Xinhua Dictionary ranked first in the content that users most wanted to be loaded in the dictionary pen." NetEase Youdao CEO Zhou Feng told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.

In terms of functionality, the dictionary pen adds speech correction, thus extending the learning use from translation to listening and speaking. Subsequently, the point reading function was added, and the picture book with the point reading function was published in cooperation with the publishing house. After the current Youdao dictionary pen is upgraded, a new point reading globe function has been added.

<h4>Use scenarios extend from reading to learning</h4>

The dictionary pen has become a popular hardware with annual sales of millions of dollars, and the primary reason is the convenience in specific use cases.

The use of dictionary pens is desk reading. Before the production of dictionary pens, NetEase Youdao's main product was the Youdao Dictionary APP, which had hundreds of millions of users at that time.

"The emergence of dictionary pens allows users to not have to put down books to look up dictionaries, thus maintaining the coherence of reading." Wu Yinghui said.

Since then, the dictionary pen has become a business model for electronic dictionaries that are difficult to monetize. In fact, occupying the hardware channel is also a monetization channel for traditional publishing houses such as the Commercial Press to digitize content.

The Commercial Press has long launched the Xinhua Dictionary APP, the Modern Chinese Dictionary APP, and the Hanfen APP, and won a series of national awards. The Xinhua Dictionary app also explores a business model for paid membership.

However, Gu Qing, executive director of the Commercial Press, told 21st Century Business Herald, "The Commercial Press is actually struggling to explore the digital field, because the operation model of traditional publishing houses is completely different from digital publishing, we have done a lot of high-quality content products, won a series of awards, but in fact the income is relatively limited." ”

The same is true for tool education APPS, some verbal corrections, photo search APP, although there are many users, large traffic, but free for users to use, low income.

More importantly, when primary and secondary school students use education APPS, parents are increasingly vigilant about mobile phones in order to protect their children's vision and avoid unhealthy content.

As a result, while the dictionary pen is evolving as the user evolves, the usage scenarios are also evolving, and more and more from desk reading to desk learning.

Taking youdao dictionary pen as an example, it has been connected to the functions of English composition correction and mathematical oral arithmetic correction. However, Zhou Feng told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the Youdao dictionary pen will not access the function of taking pictures and searching questions.

The "double reduction" policy requires 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.

With the increasingly rich functions, the dictionary pen is increasingly becoming the "second mobile phone" of primary and secondary school students. The only thing that is difficult to replace is that the display is too small to provide exercises. However, in the context of relatively perfect AI adaptive learning technology, exercise exercises are increasingly combined with functions such as video micro-lessons and handwriting input, mainly presented on large-screen hardware such as learning tablets, and are also escaping mobile phones.

For a demand that cannot be met by hardware, the countermeasure of the education company is to strengthen the use of accounts, so as to achieve cross-screen content migration through accounts.

<h4>Get rid of the phone get rid of the "traffic" thinking</h4>

Under the influence of market demand and the "double reduction" policy, the value of education hardware as the "traffic entrance" of training business is weakening, resulting in the fact that education hardware has begun to embark on the center of education company strategy, and education hardware has also made education hardware more unscrupulous to replace students' mobile phones.

For example, the Homework Help APP was once the only education APP with more than 100 million monthly active users in China, and its main function was free, but it converted a large amount of low-cost traffic for the Homework Help Live Class.

After the "double reduction", NetEase Youdao has announced that it will divest the compulsory education discipline training business, and the main business will shift to quality education, adult vocational skills training, education hardware and education informatization in the future.

Coincidentally, NetEase Youdao's products in the field of education informatization are also circumventing mobile phones. NetEase Youdao has launched a Youdao intelligent learning terminal for primary and secondary schools for homework correction and data collection.

In the past, the big data collection of students' homework required the use of mobile phones or tablets to do homework, but the intelligent learning terminal supported the data collection and identification of any paper teaching aids, examination papers, and homework. Under the premise of not changing the habit of paper and pencil handwriting, through the identification of wrong questions, the recommendation of personalized exercises, and then generate an exclusive paper exercise book.

When education hardware is getting rid of mobile phones more and more, it is also getting rid of the "traffic" thinking, so that the importance of education hardware as an independent business is becoming more and more prominent.

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