New Oriental Education & Technology Group, Inc.

Good evening, and thank you for standing by for New Oriental's FY 2021 Second Quarter Results Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Cici Zhao. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to New Oriental's second fiscal quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Our financial results for the period were released earlier today and are available on the company's website as well as on Newswire services. Today you will hear from Stephen Yang, Executive President and Chief Financial Officer. After his prepared remarks, Stephen and I will be available to answer your questions. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, our results may be materially different from the views expressed today. A number of potential risks and uncertainties are outlined in our public findings with the SEC. New Rental does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a webcast of this conference call will be available on New Oriental's Investor Relations website at investor.neworiental.org. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Stephen. Stephen, please, go ahead.

Thank you, Cici. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. Although the impacts of the pandemic continues to raise hurdles for business across the globe. We are pleased to announce a set of financial results in the second quarter of this year that are in line with our expectation. While reflecting strong signs of recovery in some of our business lines, a certain status began to pass to normalization. Total net revenue was $887.7 million. representing a 13.1% increase year-over-year, which is an encouraging result despite these challenges. Our key revenue growth driver, K-12 after-school children's business, achieved year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 26%. Our U.K. middle school, high school, all subjects after-school children's business continues its momentum with a growth of approximately 27%. while our top kids program recorded a growth of approximately 24%. Our industry-leading OMO system has been vital in the previous quarters to ensure our classes run smoothly, and it has once again proved to be instrumental in this quarter. As is provided, our operation with strong flexibility to help the vast majority of our students migrate from OMO online class back to offline learning centers, which have gradually resumed service amid easing of the pandemic restriction measures. Encouraged by its effectiveness, we have been committed to expand the reach of our OMO system and are delighted to say that we have piloted the OMO. online courses in vast majority of existing cities and around 20 new surrounding satellite cities in the autumn semester, attracting a promising number of new customers and students while the OMO system contributes a single digit to the overall revenue in this quarter. With its ability to virtually reach both major and satellite cities across China, we have no doubt that it will grow rapidly in the coming quarters and become a major driver to our business growth in the future. Cost control has become a key feature in our operation as we aim to cushion the impacts from the pandemic. We focus on the cost-effective strategies that would deliver strong return and outcome and avoid spending on strategies or promotions that would have little business impact. While online education is a growing trend in China, pure online platforms tend to require substantial standing on marketing promotion. Hence, with the OMO system, we have been able to achieve constantly high number of enrollments with cost-effective promotions because of our strong on-the-ground presence and online channels supplement each other, which enables us to more effectively recruit new customers and deliver better service to our students. Total student enrollment in dynamic subject tutoring and test craft courses in the second fiscal quarter of 2021 increased by 10.4% year-over-year, approximately 4,183,100, which is in line with our expectation. In terms of pricing, Per program-blended ASP, wages cash revenue divided by total student enrollment increased by about 13% year-over-year in dollar terms. As for hourly-blended ASP, wages cash revenue divided by total teaching hours was flat year-over-year. To provide a breakdown of the hourly-blended ASP, please note that UCAN classes increased by 8%. UCAN VIP increased by 5%. POP case increased by 0.3%, and the Overseas Test Grab Program increased by 13% all year-over-year in Army terms. Comparing with our normal price increase of 5% to 8%, this quarter's hourly blended ASP flat was mainly because of the bigger decline of Overseas Test Grab Program, which hourly blended ASP was much higher than the other programs. Now, I'd like to spend some time to talk about the quarter performance across our individual business lines in detail. As the pandemic became largely under control in China, recovery momentum continued to pick up in this quarter across our business lines. Our key revenue driver, K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business, achieved the year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 26% in dollar terms. Breaking it down, The UCAM Middle High School All Subjects Afterschool Children's Business recorded a revenue growth increase of approximately 27% for the quarter, so enrollment grew approximately 15% year-over-year for the quarter. Pop Kids program delivered outstanding results, with the revenue up by about 24% in dollar terms for the quarter. Enrollment increased by 14% for the quarter. Our overseas-related business, including test prep and consulting business, showed encouraging signs of recovery despite facing the most difficult challenge due to the cancellation of the overseas test exams and restrictions on travel, as well as the unpredictability of the pandemic situation in different parts of the world, raising the students' hesitance to study abroad. The overseas test-trap distance reported a revenue decrease of about 29% in dollar terms for the quarter. in comparison to a decrease of 51% in the last quarter, while the Overseas Consulting and Overseas Study Tour business recorded a revenue increase of about 6% in dollar terms year-over-year for the quarter, recovering from last quarter's 31% decrease. And finally, VIP personalized class businesses recorded the cash revenue increased by about 20% year-over-year in dollar terms for the quarter. We carried out capacity expansion in cities where we see potential for rapid growth and strong profitability in this quarter. We opened five new offline training schools in the city of Langfang, Kunshan, Dongyang, Danyang, and Jiujiang. Altogether, this increased the total square meters of classroom area by approximately 21% year-over-year, 4% quarter-over-quarter by the end of this quarter. This increase is in line with our expectation as we gradually ramp up our expansion efforts throughout the academic year to prepare us for recruiting more new student enrollment at the start of the following academic year. The expansion in our offline education network has also made sure that we are fully prepared for when the pandemic is over and our service can resume with strong presence across different Chinese cities. We rolled out the due teacher class model for Pop Kids program in 58 existing cities, for UCAM program in 27 existing cities. With satisfactory customer retention and scalability, we will continue to use the model to increase our market penetration in those markets we have tapped into. An outbreak of COVID has highlighted the importance and demand of the online education. We have placed more resources in this area and invested $54 million in this quarter to improve and maintain our OMO integrated education ecosystem. Our success in piloting the OMO system in around 20 new settler cities through the nearby major cities this quarter is yet another testament of how these low-cost but highly return OMO business model can rapidly become one of the most far-reaching education service in China. Leveraging the presence of the offline school and learning centers and brand visibility in major cities, we're able to reach nearby satellite cities and continue to bring in high number of the enrollments without the need to spend a huge sum of money on promotion marketing. More importantly, This is a model that we can easily and cost-effectively replicate in different parts of China. Hence, we are very optimistic about the growth potential of our OMO system in the next few quarters. Apart from the OMO infrastructure, we have allocated part of the resources in advance to the teacher's training program for our teachers to enhance their online-offline integrated teaching skills in response to growing demand. At the same time, we continue to upgrade our technology platforms and will broaden the usage of the online tools and content in our OMO system for all business lines throughout the whole network, as well as further develop the best teaching content and courseware to cater to online-offline integrated education methods. It's important to highlight that one of the key aspects that's made our OMO system stand out from the industry is the localization of our teaching content. OMO teaching materials for each city are developed by the local schools rather than mass produced centrally, which means our content is tailored with local nuance and reference to help students understand the materials better and encourage them to be more engaged in classes. On the promotional front, the nature of OMO system enable us to implement cross-selling strategy whereby we promote the courses through the both online and offline channels, reaching the broad range of the customer from different locations. We're glad to see that our industry-leading OMO ecosystem has not only successfully managed to cushion most of the impact, on our service penetration caused by the pandemic, but we also see our customer retention rates remain stable, which further demonstrates our customers' satisfaction and effectiveness of our online core through our OMO system. We believe these OMO initiatives will effectively boost the enrollment and speed up the recovery of business in the coming quarters. To capture the huge opportunity in the online education space, we continue to invest in more resources in executing initiatives in online K-12 after-school children's business in fiscal year 2021. During the COVID, Cool Learn did a large-scale market promotion by offering three large online live broadcasting classes to the public and attracted several more several times more traffic than normal time. To capture this new market opportunity, Cooler also added a meaningful number of customer service representatives and marketing staff to support the new initiatives in Q12 children. These moves have consequently raised our spending on the marketing front, but we believe these are necessary and understandable measures as we find ourselves in an unusual situation. Our Dongfang Youbo DFUB small-size classes currently enjoy a significant first-mover advantage and stand to benefit from the increase in demand in low-tier cities. Cooler large-size K-12 courses are able to offer the best in-class learning experience through the investments in upgrading the app. and online platforms, introducing new education technologies and adding more new attractive features online classes. Kuler also continued to establish teaching training centers in other geographic locations to attract more qualified teachers and tutors and provide systematic training programs. At the same time, we will be very cautious in identifying high ROI marketing channels and evaluate their unit economics in real time, which will in return keep the average user acquisition cost at a relatively low level. We believe as a result of the improvements to operational teams as well as positive word of mouth promotion and brand loyalty, CoolLearn will continue to quickly acquire new users while enhancing the student retention rate. I will turn the call over to Cici to walk you through the other key financial details for the second quarter.

Operating cost and expenses for the quarter were $919.8 million, representing a 21% increase year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating cost and expenses for the quarter, which exclude share-based compensation expenses, were $911.4 million. representing a 20.4% increase year-over-year. Cost of revenue increased by 26.4% year-over-year to $453.7 million, primarily due to the increases in teachers' compensation for more teaching hours and higher rental costs for the increased number of schools and learning centers in operation. Setting and marketing expenses increased by 23.9% year-over-year, to $133.6 million, primarily due to the addition of a number of customer service representatives and marketing staff with the aim of capturing the new market opportunity during the COVID-19 period, especially for the new initiatives in K-12 tutoring on our pure online education platform, CoolLearn.com. G&A expenses for the quarter increased by 13.5% year-over-year to $332.6 million. Non-GAAP general administrative expenses, which includes share-based compensation expenses, were $319.8 million, representing a 13.4% increase year-over-year. Total share-based compensation expenses, which were allocated to related operating cost and expenses increased by 64.8% to 18.5 million US dollars in the second fiscal quarter of 2021. Operating loss for the quarter was 32.1 million US dollars compared to an increase of 25.3 million US dollars. Non-GAAP loss from operating operations for the quarter were 13.7 million US dollars compared to an income of $36.5 million. Operating margin for the quarter was negative 3.6% comparing to 3.2% in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes share-based compensations for the quarter, was negative 1.5% compared to 4.7% in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was $53.9 million, representing a 0.9% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Basic undiluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were $0.33 and $0.33 respectively. Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was $69.1 million, representing a 21.3% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP basic and downloaded earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were $0.43 and $0.43 respectively. Net operating cash flow for the second fiscal quarter of 2021 was approximately $410.7 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $62 million. which was primarily attributable to the opening of 78 facilities and renovations at existing learning centers. Turning to the balance sheets, as of November 30, 2020, New Oriental had cash and cash equivalents of $2,643.2 million as compared to $915.1 million as of May 31, 2020. In addition, The company had $416.1 million in term deposits and $3,035.3 million in short-term investments. New Oriental deferred revenue balance, which is cash collected from registered students for courses and recognized proportionally as revenue as the instructions are delivered at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2021. was $1,987.1 million, an increase of 26.5% as compared to $1,570.4 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2020. Now I'll hand back to Stephen to talk about outlook and guidance.

Looking ahead into next quarter and the rest of fiscal year 2021, despite the continued challenges from the pandemic and the concerns covering the new wave of outbreak emerging in China, we're more clear about the recovery trends of the company's near-term financial performance and the market opportunity over the long run. Our strategic focus and investment approach this year aim at improving product quality increasing teacher salaries, and enhancing our industry-leading system, which fully reflects our ethos of focusing on the essence of education. In view of market competition and opportunity to take advantage of post-COVID market consolidation, we firmly maintain a stable and balanced investment strategy that would improve the quality of our education service with the aim to achieve a sustainable and long-term growth as opposed to unhealthy short-term growth that often requires excessive investment and higher cost to acquire customers. As such, we will continue to focus on the following key areas. First, we will continue to expand our offline business. We aim to add around 20% to 25% capacity, including new learning centers and expanding classroom area of some existing learning centers to cater to our business in this fiscal year. We believe our capacity expansion will prepare us to further take market share from other players post-COVID, as we believe some smaller players without strong financial position and online class capability may not be able to sustain its business during this period. We expect the industry will undergo a way for market consolidation upon the pandemic phase. The fact that we are a major player with a strong financial capacity and fresh offline facilities enable us to further strengthen our market-leading position and penetration. Second, we will continue to leverage our investment into digital technologies and introduce our OMO system in more offline language training and test offering, especially our K-12 tutoring and oversee test prep key businesses. The usage of online tools and content in our OMO system for all business lines throughout the whole network will be enhanced. To uplift the whole OMO teaching experience, we will place more effort in developing the best teaching content and courseware, and also developing more advanced training programs to our teachers. With all the above-mentioned infrastructure in place, we will continue to pilot our OMO online initiatives in major cities with a high demand and higher operational efficiency, and its surrounding satellite cities. We believe that our OMO initiatives will be one of our growth engines to increase our customer acquisition post-COVID. As it can quickly replicate in different parts of China, enabling us to capture the market consolidation opportunity. This revamped new business model will also accelerate our margin recovery when the pandemic is over and further expand our long-term margin target. Here, I have to highlight all of these OMO products are supported by our offline classes. They supplement each other in a hybrid format. All the teaching content and coursework materials, as well as the teachers, are developed and originated from our existing offline centers and resources. Furthermore, we will continue to invest in and implement new initiatives, including product content development, teacher recruiting training, R&D, as well as self-marketing advances in pure online K-12 after-school children's business on our CoolLearn.com platform. Third, our top priority will remain as the focus on controlling cost and reducing expenditures across the organization, to minimize the negative impact from the pandemic on the bottom line. We believe we will resume the expansion of overall non-GAAP operating margin year-over-year as COVID-19 subsides gradually. Here, I would like to stress that we have great confidence in the fundamentals of our business, which we believe will continue to remain strong. Although we are facing various short-term negative impacts from the pandemic, we have been increasing our investments in different strategies and we remain optimistic of a brighter prospect of our business and believe our investments now will bring us fruitful returns in the long run. Due to the concerns that a new wave of COVID-19 outbreak is emerging in North China, as of today, we have moved our offline classes to small size online broadcasting classes through the OMO system in over 10 cities, including the major cities such as Beijing, Xi'an, and Thailand. Despite these challenges, our OMO system enables us to migrate classes between offline and online platforms swiftly and seamlessly. And therefore, the impact on our business will be cushioned should there be a significant outbreak. In the meantime, the unpredictability of the epidemic has also reminded us to plan ahead of the future as we continue to build new learning centers to ensure we will be ready to accommodate a large number of students with situations normalized. When looking ahead near-term, our expectations for the next quarter, we expect total revenue to be in the range of $1,090 $98.6 million to $1,144.8 million, representing a year-over-year increase in the range of 19% to 24%. To provide a breakdown of the expected top-line growth for the key business units, K-12 after-school children's business is expected to grow in the range of 27% to 32%. Overseas test labs program is expected to decline 25% to 20%. Overseas study consulting and study tour business is expected to decline 5% to 0%. And the growth of the CoolLearn.com pure online education platform is expected to accelerate all year-over-year in dollar terms. Despite the fact that our oversea test prep and consulting service for the second quarter fared better than the first physical quarter. We still expect the oversea related business to continue to behave the harder due to the pandemics around the globe. Caused by the cancellation of the oversea exams, suspension of the oversea schools, and restriction on titles. The negative impact on this overseas related business will affect the entire education industry in China, not only new rental, and may last over the coming one or two quarters. That said, we're pleased to see that China has been controlling the pandemic situation relatively well, which shed a more positive light on this systematically. To conclude, We are now taking all kinds of operational actions to boost enrollment and classroom utilization for the autumn semester and speed up the recovery of business after the resumption of the schools and learning centers. We're confident that the demands for after-school tutoring will gradually peak up and trend toward a normalized level gradually. I must mention that these expectations reflect our considerations of the latest pandemic situation as well as our current and preliminary view, which is subject to change. At this point, Citi and I will take your questions. Operator, please open the call for these. Thank you.

Thank you. The question and answer session of this conference call will start in a moment. In order to be fair to all callers who wish to ask questions, we will take one question at a time from each caller. If you have more than one question, please request to join the question queue again after your first question has been addressed. To ask a question, please press star 1 and wait for your name to be announced. To cancel your request, please press the pound or hash key. Your first question comes from the line of Tian Hu of TH Capital. Please ask your question.

Thank you, Stephen. Congratulations on the good quarter. So in your open remarks, you talk about the OMO, and it also shows the positive result in your last quarter's earnings, and your offline enrollment growth, revenue growth, is much more higher than peers. So I wonder, can you elaborate on how important OMO strategy is for you in fiscal 2021 as well as the next couple of years. And by the end of this year, this fiscal year, or next fiscal year, what's the portion of OMO is going to be in your total enrollment or revenue? So, you know, Basically, it's to elaborate on your OMO strategy for the future.

Thank you, Tian. This is a great question. On the market front, actually, we're seeing the great business opportunity recently because more small players disappeared from the market. And we put more efforts on our offline business combined with the OMO model. And we have piloted the market-leading OMO model in the vast majority of the cities and to set up the OMO business in 20 new satellite cities nearby the core city. And the key is I think the student retention rate and the satisfaction from the customers are better than we expected in the summer. And so, you know, this quarter the OMO contributed the single digit to the overall revenue contribution. But, you know, we believe the OMO model will grow rapidly going forward and will become a major driver to our business growth. So that means the OMO will help the top-line growth of our traditional, the offline business. And let me repeat some advantage of the OMO model, okay? You know, the OMO model typically has the lower customer acquisition cost. That means, you know, we do have the very strong marketing teams, and so that means we don't need to spend crazy money on the Internet or something like the channels, the online channels. Second, I think it's very easy for us to replicate the OMO model in the other provinces in China. Third, I think our content of the OMO model are more localized than the typical super large online broadcasting classes. I think this is our advantage. And all the coursework, all the materials are original from the local, our local staff. So I think this makes the students love our OMO courses more and put them more engaged in the classes. And the last one is, you know, I do believe the OMO model will bring us even the opportunity of the cross-seller. You know, we can cross-sell the OMO, the online course, and the offline course each other. So, you know, I've spent too much time on the OMO model, but I think this is very important. Jen, is it clear?

Yes. Thank you so much, Stephen.

I give the floor to others. I think the revenue contribution in next fiscal year will be more than that of this year. And I think we will see one or two more quarters to estimate the revenue contribution. But I do believe the revenue contribution from the OMO model will be a meaningful number next year. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ken.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Lee of Citi. Please ask your question.

Hi, Stephen and Susu, and thanks for the presentation. I want to ask, at this point, could you give us some color for the FY22 guidance? like in terms of the revenue growth or the capacity expansion or the lower tier city penetration. Any color would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, I think we have done very well to run the business during the COVID, the hard time. And, you know, we extend our capacity by 20, 25%. And also, you know, we raise the salary of the teachers during the hard time. And I think we are ready for the new year. And so in the fiscal year 2022, I think the revenue growth will be booming. Okay. And in the fiscal year 2022, I believe the margin will be expanded. Because, you know, first of all, you know, we have a low base this year. And second, you know, I do believe the China will control the pandemic relatively well. And I do believe that most of the students can go back to our learning centers. And some new cities, low-tier city students can enjoy the service of our OMM model. And, yeah. Mark? Sure. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Mark.

Just a quick reminder, if you will ask questions, please ask one question at a time. Thank you. Your next question is from Felix Liu of UBS. Please ask.

Good evening, management, and congratulations on the results. My question is on COVID-19 impact. I know your guidance of 15 to 24% revenue growth for the next quarter. Has that reflected in the current level of COVID-19 lockdown, or are we expecting potentially more cities to roll out similar measures? And for this round of COVID-19, you mentioned that you're better prepared than last time, but I know, you know, will the new enrollment growth for the May quarter be impacted, or are we okay with new enrollment growth this time? Thank you.

Felix, you know, due to the concerns of the new wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in North China, I think we, today, we have moved all the offline classes to online in over 10 cities. such as the major cities like Beijing, Xi'an, and Taoyuan, and all these cities in Northeast Dongbei region. And so, you know, I think the, yeah, well, I think there's, it is the negative impacts, but the key is, despite the challenge, I think our OMO system enable us to migrate clouds between offline and online. And I think this time we prepare better, you know, face the challenge compared to that of last year. And the one more point, you know, the Q3, because of the late Chinese New Year holiday, the Q3, the cost scheduling will be next to the impact, you know, to some extent. But anyway, even we face to the challenge of the new wave of COVID, I think the Q3 revenue growth will be accelerated than the Q2. And we're quite optimistic about the business performance in Q4 and next year. And the last one, you know, I want to add is we're using the conservative way to make the guidance forecast because, you know, the environment changes almost every day.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.

Next question comes from the line of Alex Hsieh of Credit Suisse. Please ask your question.

Hi, management. Thank you for taking my questions. So my first question will be about OMO. As Stephen mentioned, you covered 20 satellite cities. May I ask how many core cities are that involved to cover 20 satellite cities? And what will be your plan to expand in the next fiscal year for this kind of model to cover more satellite cities and core cities. And secondly, congratulations, Stephen, on your new role as the executive president. Would you please share with us what's the responsibility with this new role and your thoughts about the implications for the corporate governance about this new role.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, first of all. I think, you know, yeah, I think I'm happy to take the role of the executive, the president, and the CFO. And, yeah, I believe I will spend more time on my job. But the good news for me is, you know, I have very strong teams. You know, we worked together for so many, so many years. And I think all the managers and my staff, like CeCe, will support me stronger than before. And also, actually, two years ago, I spent some time on the operations side. I think that some investors knew that. So I love to spend more time with the operational team because it makes me more familiar with the business and to give them the better instructions and guidance I think I was doing my best to do this new job and to create more value to the shareholders and our customers. The OMO courses. I think we are running the seven provinces of the OMO model. We call this . We started from the Hangzhou in the Zhejiang province, and like the Shandong and Shaanxi and Fujian, some of the key provinces followed. I think so far so good. Actually, most of the provinces performed better than we expected. So I believe they will do better going forward, and we will pilot the new OMO model in more provinces going forward. Thank you.

That is very helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Sheng Zhang of Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.

Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. Just one question about your offline price. You mentioned that it increased very strong. So wondering the reasons of the price increase. especially there are a lot of competition from the online, and also we see the small, the supply, the small institutions, they also provide price discount. Is it because you see the offline supply decrease post-COVID-19, or for some other reasons that your pricing strategy?

Thank you. I think our price strategy has been very consistent. And, you know, these quarters already blend the SP, you know, was flat. And, yeah, we raised the price of the UCAN program by 5%, by 8%, and UCAN VIP price increase was 5%. PopCase, we keep the same price. I don't think the online platforms competition will impact our price strategy. I'm not sure you remember clearly or not. We did the very good, successful summer promotion half a year ago. During the summer, we got more than $1 million, the summer promotion enrollment. We charged 400 RMB. I think it's much expensive than the other online players. Most of them were providing the free course, like the Jiu Kua Jiu. But our retention rate was over 60%. So I think the Chinese parents and students, they care more about the teaching quality and the study results of their kids rather than the price. So going forward, I think our price strategy will be consistent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Lucy Yu of Bank of America. Please ask a question.

Hi, Stephen. I just got a very quick question. You mentioned that in the third quarter, there will be some negative impact from cut scheduling.

Could you please quantify that for us, please? Yeah. You know, typically the late Chinese New Year will impact the revenue by 5% to 6% because of the K-12 business. Because, you know, last year the first two courses in the spring semester what happens in the Q3. But this year, we started all the courses in March. So that means we sacrificed 5% to 6% revenue of the pop case in UCAN, but it's just the one-time impact, just the timing difference.

So just to make sure that your guidance on third quarter K-12 is 27% to 32%. So if we're adding the 5% to 6% back, it should be like low 30s to high 30s kind of growth, right? Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Christine Shaw of Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.

Hi, thank you. Thank you, Stephen. So I know it's your dual listing. You have built quite a substantial net cash position. So could you give us some color as to your capital allocation strategy going forward? And then secondly, just very quickly, Stephen, do you have any thoughts on your midterm guidance of 17% to 18% operating profit margin? Any plans to revisit that?

Thank you. Christine, you know, the capital allocation, yeah, we raised money last year in November in Hong Kong's market from the second listing. And, you know, we love to pay the capital allocation to investors. You know, historically, we did it several times, special dividends, and several times share buyback. And the use of the money, I think we prefer to use the money to make some of the potential valuable investments. If we can find some potential synergy between the target company and us, we'll do it. But we will do it very carefully. And second, we will love to pay the investors. And this is your number one question. Number two question is about the The long-term margin. Yeah. We don't want to change our mid-long-term margin guidance. You know, I think the – let me start with the revenue first. I think the revenue growth recovery is in the process. I think we still need one to two quarters to go back to the normal. And on the market front, you know, we're seeing the great opportunity everywhere because the small players disappear from the markets. And I do believe it's a great opportunity for New Oriental going forward. So that's why we tend to firmly make more investment now. You know, we make the learning center expansion by 20, 25% during a hard time, and we raise the teacher's salary. And we hire more ground marketing staff to do the ground promotion, which is more effective than the online channels. And also we spend some R&D on the OMO model. So all the above, the investment plus the inactive impacts from the overseas test graph and the cooler and drags the margin is four times. But we're confident that we'll be able to deliver the continued margin expansion upon the pandemic phase. And that's why I said I don't want to change our mid-long-term guidance.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Alex Liu of China Renaissance. Please ask your question.

Hi. Yeah, thanks, . Thanks. I think you kind of just answered my question, but actually my question was that, you know, in terms of margin, if you look at a non-GAAP operating margin, I think this quarter was still a slight decline year over year. Just how fast or specifically around what time should we expect the margin to bottom out in the next few quarters?

Thank you. I think, you know, yeah, as I said, to answer the question from Christine, you know, last round, And because our revenue recoveries still need to go back to normal, it still need maybe one or two quarters. But you know the top line. It will be the goal to be a very bottom line. And also, we're in the investing phase to hire more, to spend more on the teachers, on the extension. especially for the impact of the new wave of COVID in North China, like Beijing, Xi'an, and Taiwan, and all provinces in Dongbei. I think this will hit us a little bit in the Q3, but I think it's just one time. I don't believe the Chinese will manage the COVID relatively well going forward. And I do believe our performance in the coming quarters and even in the next year will be better than the Q2. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I actually have a quick follow-up. Just on the teacher compensation, I think we changed the teacher compensation structure a bit. in this fiscal year. I'm just wondering, how should we think about the teacher compensation growth in the next few quarters? Is it fair to say that given we might be already past the time when the competition pressure on teacher compensation is the most severe?

I think it's a great question. You know, the reason that we raise the teacher's salary is not because of the competition from the online players. You know, the online players, they just need a few teachers. And we have a lot of teachers. And I think this decision was totally made by Michael. He think, you know, he think, you know, he, he discussed a lot internally, uh, with all the managers and school has just to raise the teacher's salary because this is our most advantage, not only for the short time, but also for the long time. So, you know, we fully, eternally with fully report, uh, support the Michael's decision. And, uh, you know, even during the hard time and, uh, And, you know, our top line growth was negative impact to some extent, but we firmly raised the teacher salary. I don't think it will attract the margin because, you know, I think we pay the teachers higher. We bring up the higher utilization rates and the student retention rates in the mid-long term.

Great. Thank you. Yeah.

We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to New Oriental's Executive President and TFO, Steven Yang, for his closing remarks.

Again, thank you for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of our investor relations representatives. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect.