Reporter | Cha Qinjun Edit |
"There were no particularly large giants in the early stage of children's programming, and the market size of the entire track was not large, about tens of billions, but after the 'double reduction', the market capacity will increase significantly." Wang Shasha, dean of Shengtong Education Research Institute and director of teaching and research of Lebo Lebo, said in an exclusive interview with Interface Education a few days ago.
With the landing of the "double reduction" new policy, subject training is limited, and non-disciplinary training such as quality education and vocational education ushers in the golden moment of industry development.
Since entering the technology education market through the acquisition of Lebo In 2016, Shengtong Co., Ltd. (002599.sz) has successively included brands such as Zhongming Robot, Zhongxiao Children's Creation, Leyibo, vipcode, Geek Haima, and Chuangxiang Childhood. The business areas cover youth programming training and assessment, robot programming education sales, and science and technology education into the campus service and other fields.
On the evening of August 25, Shengtong Co., Ltd. released the financial report for the first half of 2021, achieving revenue of 1.264 billion yuan, an increase of 53.36% year-on-year, and net profit of 57.4812 million yuan, turning losses into profits.
However, the comprehensive printing service of its fortune business is still the main source of revenue, accounting for 84.69% of the total revenue. The revenue of science and technology education services was 194 million yuan, and the proportion of revenue increased from 7.51% last year to 15%.
"In the future, the group will increase investment in education business, and the revenue will definitely increase and the proportion will increase." Wang Shasha said to Interface Education. Shengtong shares said in the financial report, "relying on the national policy to encourage the development of science and technology education business, will become the company's new profit growth point." ”
Programming education is a branch of steam education (i.e., science science, technology technology, engineering, arts, math mathematics education) and is the main part of computer science education.
Children's programming education is aimed at children aged 3-18, based on visual graphic programming tools and basic programming languages, building online programming learning platforms and open source hardware platforms, cultivating skills such as computational thinking and innovation ability. According to the learning tool system can be divided into hardware and software programming, hardware programming is also often referred to as robot programming.
Its teaching methods are mainly divided into online teaching, offline stores and omo: online training starts with programming while playing, dream programming, vipcode, walnut programming, etc.; offline players have small code king, geek morning star, etc., omo is represented by Lebo Lebo, Tong Cheng Tongmei, programming cat. Among the hardware programming players, including onlly stems, Lezhi Robots, Bruker and so on.
According to the Data of the Multi-Whale Education Research Institute, the current average penetration rate of all age groups is close to 2%. Based on the number of K12 students of 240 million and the average unit price of 6,000 yuan, the total market size of all age groups will reach 27.8 billion in 2021. With a growth rate of 17% in the next 4 years, the size of the children's programming market is expected to exceed 50 billion in 2025.
"In the education business, the biggest contribution to revenue is Loeblobo." Wang Shasha said frankly that Loeblobo has established a complete curriculum system for all ages from 3 to 18 years old, and the average length of lebo students has reached 4 years.
"Loeb's curriculum and programming software are independently developed, and teaching aids have gradually achieved independent research and development and localization," Wang said.
During the epidemic last year, Loeblo, which is mainly based on offline teaching, was unable to complete normal enrollment and delivery, and Zhongming Robot, which is mainly based on school events, was also affected by the suspension of bidding work, and its business slowed down. In order to cope with the above challenges, Shengtong Co., Ltd. launched oMO (online and offline integration) to achieve the whole chain from enrollment, to online teaching, class scheduling, and services.
In March this year, Shengtong Education launched the Loeb online teaching service platform and upgraded it to omo2.0. "At present, omo2.0 is in the process of gradually landing, and the recurrence of the epidemic this year has basically not affected the business development of Loeblobo, and there is a learning center for the epidemic, which can switch to online classes at any time." Wang Shasha said.
omo breaks the traditional single customer acquisition model, integrates the market influence of offline stores and online operation and delivery capabilities, thereby reducing the overall customer acquisition cost.
"Due to the impact of the epidemic on the local push, Shengtong has opened up some online customer acquisition channels, including Meituan, Dianping, etc., and the overall customer acquisition cost is much lower than that of its peers." Wang Shasha told Interface Education, "The average cost of online customer acquisition in the industry is about 4,000-5,000 yuan. ”
In addition, offline courses with teaching aids have also been delivered online. Wang Shasha introduced, "Zhongming Robot helped Lebo Lebo customize a virtual simulation system, its mechanical structure and offline teaching aids, made according to the simulation ratio of 1:1." ”
The complementarity and mutual empowerment of sub-brands is not only reflected in this.
Online children's programming vipcode makes up for the shortcomings of Lebo Lebo's online teaching, Zhongming Robot provides teaching aids product support for Lebo Loeb, Creative Childhood and Hangzhou Loeblo form a complementary relationship in the age group of students, and the robot programming level assessment created by Zhongxiao Children provides a stage learning effect assessment for students in the Shengtong education system.
"Shengtong is forming a complete ecosystem, from offline to online, from to c to b and to g, from programming teaching to assessment and competition." Wang Shasha said.
According to the financial report, the service revenue of the to C end to the trainees was 145 million yuan, an increase of 214.86% year-on-year, and the service income of the to b end to the institution was 48.03 million yuan, an increase of 206.71% year-on-year.
"To g is also what Shengtong Education should focus on this year." Wang Shasha revealed, "A special science and technology business department has been set up. Before there was a certain to g foundation, Zhongming Robot had partners in the school in the country, and the distribution was also more paved. ”
The "double subtraction" clearly stipulates that "schools with the capacity are encouraged to provide students with interest-based after-school service activities in their spare time." Where after-school services cannot meet the special needs of some students such as developing interests and specialties, non-disciplinary off-campus training institutions may be appropriately introduced to participate in after-school services. ”
On August 20, Shengtong Co., Ltd. and Shark Park established a strategic cooperation on the school business, Wang Shasha said: "We will work with more partners to build a science and technology service platform for the campus, and put the science and technology courses needed by the school on this platform." ”
In Wang Shasha's view, the biggest pain point of public schools is the problem of teachers in after-school services, so it needs external forces to supplement it. "Our direct and franchise stores are distributed all over the country, and these teachers can do the nearest school service."
"The children's programming market in first- and second-tier cities has been relatively saturated, to be honest, basically each family has tied up more in the first- and second-tier cities, and there are still many opportunities in the sinking market." Wang Shasha said to Interface Education.
Jiang Min, vice president of investment of Zhen Education Fund, also mentioned in an interview with Interface Education that the huge population base of third- and fourth-tier cities means broad market value, and with the improvement of people's recognition and acceptance of quality education, it will bring huge growth to the children's programming industry.
The "double reduction" policy has also become one of the catalysts for "sinking". "The policy is good for the science and technology education track, and the outbreak time of the children's programming track may be reduced from the previous two or three years to about one year." Wang Shasha said.
Before the "double reduction" landed, there were a large number of discipline training institutions distributed in the sinking market. The choices we are facing now are either closure and transformation, and the transformation generally has problems such as the construction of the curriculum system, the lack of excellent teachers, and the externalization of learning effects.
"The transformation plan has several major directions to choose from, namely art, sports, science and technology education and other fields. The original sinking market of art institutions is relatively large, and the development maturity of sports is not as good as that of science and technology. Wang Shasha said.
For the transformation plan, there are currently many companies targeting this demand, among which the online children's programming VIPcode to b business, mainly for enterprises with transformation needs, to provide course implantation services.
"This is a relatively fast transformation method, find a ready-made more mature system to do, the demand is still quite large." Wang Shasha told Interface Education, "It is difficult for these discipline institutions to change the brand at once, but they can provide quality education courses, we have a service team to help it do staged transformation training, and you can also go to the offline campus to help them do business." ”
In addition, combined with the teaching aids of Zhongming Robot and the courses developed by Shengtong Education Research Institute, which are matched to suitable training institutions, Shengtong Education charges authorization fees and service fees.
Walnut Programming also launched the "Nuclear Crowd Program" in August this year, providing transformation solutions for K12 discipline training institutions, providing development-free teaching software, and teaching tutoring services.
"Mainly through the AI man-machine dual-teacher model, it greatly reduces the excessive dependence of children's programming teaching on teacher resources, and shares the teacher pressure and cost pressure of the transformation of K12 education and training institutions." Walnut programming call.
"The maturity of robot programming education in the sinking market is still not as good as that of first- and second-tier cities, and after the cultivation of online education in 2020, parents in the sinking market have a certain degree of recognition, but the maturity is still slightly lower." Wang Shasha said.
In addition, one of the biggest problems with sinking is the faculty. "Lower-tier cities can't recruit better teachers, and there is a double-teacher course in the support plan of our franchised schools, which can enjoy good teachers at headquarters online, and provide teaching assistants to help answer questions from the campus offline." Wang Shasha said.
The lack of uniform industry standards is also a major pain point in the industry. The Whale Education Research Institute believes that the current domestic children's programming education is dominated by commercial companies, and there is a lack of unified industry standards and curriculum systems in the market. All kinds of competitions are mixed, so that consumers have a sense of confusion when choosing.
Therefore, how to formulate industry standards and form a standardized system in the future will be a common issue for all parties such as governments, enterprises and civil society.