This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk05: Good evening, and thank you for standing by for New Orientals FY 2022 Third Quarter Results Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After 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'd now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Cici Zhao.
spk06: Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to New Oriental's third fiscal quarter 2022 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 NewsWare services. Today, you will hear from Stephen Yeung, 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 Securities 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 Oriental does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. As a reminder, this conference has been recorded. In addition, a webcast of this conference call will be available on New Oriental Investor Relations website at investor.neworiental.org. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Yang. Stephen, please go ahead.
spk08: Thank you, Cici. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call. Before we begin, I would like to convey our sympathy to all the people who have been impacted by the pandemic, and thank all the healthcare heroes and local authorities for their hard work and commitment during this difficult time. It's been a while since our last Earnings Conference call, and we would like to take the opportunity to extend our gratitude gratitude to those who have been supporting and believing in New Oriental. While our business in the previous quarters was perhaps characterized by the significant cost incurred from cancellation of class, closure of the schools and learning centers, and employee layoffs as a result of government policy introduced last year, this quarter was about turning over a new leaf with new and decisive endeavors in innovative business opportunities as the company embarks on a fresh journey that strives to encourage all-round development of students. Despite the challenges the company is facing during this restructuring phase, we are pleased to see a promising trend in our key remaining businesses and positive momentum emerging across many of our new initiatives as we announced the latest settled financial results. Our key remaining business have shown remarkable resilience as oversea test drive business and oversea study consulting business recorded the year-over-year revenue growth of about 8% and 26%, respectively, for the first nine months of the current fiscal year. In same period, our adult and university students' business has performed exceptionally and recorded a rapid growth of approximately 59% year-over-year. Simultaneously, our management team's entrepreneurial spirit has come to the forefront at such time of the change. And we have been exploring new business opportunities, including non-academic tutoring, intelligent learning system device, study tour and research camp. educational material and digitalized smart study solutions, as well as exam prep courses designed for the students with junior college diplomas to obtain a bachelor's degree. Now I would like to spend some time to talk about this quarter's performance across our remaining business lines and introducing our new initiatives in detail. Our key remaining business got a promising trend, breaking it down. The overseas test drive business recorded the revenue increase of about 8% in dollar terms for the first nine months of this fiscal year. The overseas study consulting business recorded revenue increase about 26% in dollar terms year-over-year for the first nine months of this year. The domestic test drive business targeting adults and the university students recorded the rapid growth of approximately 59% year-over-year for the first nine months of this year. As for our new business initiatives, we have launched five new initiatives in the past month, which mostly revolve around facilitating students all around development. I'm glad to share with you that these new initiatives have shown positive momentum. Firstly, the non-dynamic children business which we have rolled out in over 60 existing cities, focused on cultivating students' innovative ability and comprehensive quality, we're happy to see increased market penetration in those markets we have tapped into. The top 10 cities in China have contributed more than 60% of the revenue of this business. Secondly, the intelligence learning system and device business It's a service designed to provide a tailored digital learning experience for students. It utilized our past teaching experience data and technology to provide personalized and targeted learning and exercise content together with our teachers monitoring and accessing the learning curve for our students as a backend system. The new educational service not only greatly improves students' learning efficiency, but also cultivates students' proactive learning habits. We have tested its adoption in over 50 existing cities and are delighted to see improved customer retention and scalability of this new initiative. The revenue contribution of these initiatives from the top 10 cities in China is over 65%. Meanwhile, the study tour and research camp business is an initiative that aims at offering students the opportunity to fully leverage their free time and holidays to broaden the scope of knowledge and cultivate subject interest. We have conducted the study tours and the research camp in over 50 cities across the country. The revenue contribution of these initiatives from the top 10 cities in China is over 55%. We're also very excited about the prospect of the educational material and digitalized smart study solutions. A self-learning system leveraging advanced technology that enables students to have complete control over the pace and flexibility of learning in an age where remote learning becomes increasingly mainstream. In addition, Murento's smart education business comprise the smart teaching, smart hardware, science and technology innovation education, and other service, providing high quality educational resources and comprehensive services for local governments, educational authorities, primary and secondary schools and kindergartens. The products and services related to scientific enlightenment, aerospace feature, and artificial intelligence, smart education business, have presence in over 2,000 kindergartens and over 500 primary and secondary schools across the country. Last but not least, one other new initiative I would like to share is exam prep course designed for students with junior college diplomas to obtain bachelor's degrees. It has become a very common goal among many associate degree holders in the country to progress further in their education ladder by applying to university and we saw this gap in the market is providing them prep service to these diplomas and college students who would require support in taking that leap forward to the university level. We're piloting such courses in some higher tier cities now and plan to roll it out to more cities in the next fiscal year. During the last two fiscal quarters, we have been fully committed to complying with government policy. As a result, the total number of schools and learning centers was reduced to 847 by the end of this fiscal quarter. The significant change in our structure has underscored the importance of our industry-leading OMO system. which have been one of the consistent during the company's restructuring phase as we remained committed to investing in the R&D of the technology. The OMO has been instrumental during the restructuring process as well as the COVID-19 outbreaks in certain part of China where strong flexibility is required in migrating students between online and offline classes to minimize learning disruption. We continue to our efforts in developing and revamping our OMO teaching platform and kept leveraging our education infrastructure and technology strengths across our remaining key business and new initiatives to prove more advanced and diversify the education service to our customers for all ages. We invested $27 million in a quarter and $129 million in the first three quarters of this fiscal year. to improve and maintain our OMO teaching platform, which ensured that our high-quality service to students during the pandemic is uncompromised. Regarding the performance of our pure online platform Cooler, in light of the changing landscape of the education industry in China, Cooler has been actively seeking new market opportunities by leveraging existing infrastructure and technology, shifting strategic focus, and adjusting existing business lines and service offerings. On the other hand, CoolLearn continued to expand the development of existing college and institution business segments, as well as online education products and service offerings. On the other hand, it's implementing structural changes to meet the needs of the changing regulatory and educational environment by actively exploring new initiatives to broaden customer base and offerings. Some of the new initiatives that Cooler have been exploring, including livestream marketing of the traditional Chinese culture and high-quality agriculture, and other products from different places of our region in China, seeking institutional cooperation and developing new intelligent learning innovations. After the introduction of the government policy on after-school children last year, which has no doubt posed a direct impact to our business, we have received many inquiries and concerns from investors over the company's financial position. As a company with longstanding heritage, we have always made sure that we are prepared for and capable in weathering changes in the market. And that is reflected in our ability to maintain a strong cash position throughout the whole process. By the end of the quarter, our cash and cash equivalent term deposits and short-term investments totaled approximately $4.4 billion. In the second and third quarter of this fiscal year, the company incurred considerable costs from the termination of its leasing agreements in relation to the closure of the learning centers and employee layoffs. We believe that these costs generated during a restructuring phase are temporary as they are non-recurring losses. With the process of school closure now largely completed, It signals that the company has now entered the stage of starting afresh, exploring new opportunities with greater flexibility and strong cash flows. We're confident that in the sustainable profitability of all the remaining key business, as well as the growth and profit potential of our new initiatives. the company's management team will continue to work together to seek profitable growth. We believe our continued commitment to high quality service and operational efficiency will generate more values to our customers, society, and shareholders over the long term. Now, I will turn the call over to Cici to go through our key financials. Cici.
spk06: Now I'd like to work you through the other key financial details for the quarter. Operating costs and expenses for the quarter were $755.3 million, representing a 30.6% decrease year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating costs and expenses for the quarter, which exclude share-based compensation, were $725.3 million, representing a 32.5% decrease year-over-year. The decrease was primarily due to the reduction of facilities and number of staff as a result of the restructuring in the last two quarters. Cost of revenue decreased by 30.9% year over year to $372.7 million. Selling and marketing expenses decreased by 40% year over year to $93.7 million. G&A expenses for the quarter decreased by 26.6% year-over-year to $288.8 million. Non-GAAP G&A expenses, which exclude share-based compensation, were $259.6 million, representing 32.3% decrease year-over-year. Total share-based expenses, which were allocated to related operating costs and expenses, increased by 107.8% to $30 million in the quarter. The increase is due to the grants of restricted shares of the company to employees and directors in May 2021 with graded vesting over three years. Operating loss was $141.2 million compared to an income of $101.5 million. in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP loss from operations for the quarter was $111.2 million compared to an income of $115.9 million in the same period of last fiscal year. Net loss attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was $122.4 million compared to an income of $151.3 million in the same period last year. Basic and diluted net loss per ADS attributable to New Oriental were $0.72 and $0.72 respectively. Non-GAAP net loss attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was $95.5 million compared to an income of $163.2 million in the same period last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net loss per ADS attributable to New Oriental were $0.56 and $0.56, respectively. Net operating cash outflow for the quarter was approximately $235 million, and the capex for the quarter were $37.4 million. Turning to the balance sheet, as of February 28, 2022, New Oriental had cash and cash equivalents of 1,466.8 million U.S. dollars. In addition, the company had 915.1 million U.S. dollars in term deposits and 2,028.1 million U.S. dollars in short-term investment. New Oriento's deferred revenue balance, which is the cash collected from registered students for the courses and recognized proportionally as revenue as the instructions are delivered, at the end of the quarter, was $971.3 million, a decrease of 47.9% as compared to last year at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2021. The decrease is primarily due to the cessation of the K-9 academic after-school tutoring services in order to comply with the government's policy in China. Now, I'll hand over to Stephen to go through our outlook and guidance.
spk08: Looking ahead into the next quarter of fiscal year 2022, having adopted measures in response to the latest policies and regulations, we now have a clearer picture about the recovery trends of the company's near-term financial performance and are prepared for a new beginning as we identify new and profitable market opportunities for the long run. As the stage of the closure of the schools and learning centers nearing its end, we're left with a relatively small portion of the lease terminations to be executed in the coming months. The non-recurring one-off costs related to the closure were already accrued in the first half of the current fiscal year. In the meantime, our strong performing key remaining business are all profitable and will continue to serve as a solid foundation for business performance, as will provide us with the fuel to explore new possibilities in the market. Our strategic focus and investment approach going forward aim at expanding our new initiatives, which will be nurtured into key growth engines for our business. We're confident about the future success of these initiatives as they echo with the current trends in the market. With the likes of the non-academic tutoring and the study tour and the research camp targeting the facilitation of the all-around development of students, which is a general goal that the industry is striving to achieve. Meanwhile, intelligent learning system and device and digitalized smart study solutions are offering students digital, personalized, and remote learning experiences. which is a trending theme in the current teaching enabled and post-pandemic education industry. It will take time for this new business to come to full fruition, but as we saw in this quarter, the encouraging growth trajectory that they have already been showing proof that we are heading towards the right direction. and we're confident that the business will be starting to contribute meaningful revenue from the next fiscal year onwards. We would like to note that our guidance is taking into consideration of the recent pandemic development in Shanghai and some other small cities, as the lockdown of these cities since March has inevitably impacts our business operation locally. Student recruitment is where we experienced some disruption. Our students and customers were unable to access our service centers to sign up for courses. Though the overall impact on the business has been limited, thanks to our OMO system, which enabled us to swiftly migrate students from offline to online classes, avoiding much of the learning disruption. disruption in Shanghai and some other small cities would have significant effect on our overall revenue growth as we have a web spread presence across many cities in China. Although the pandemic situation in China remains fluid, our operation infrastructure led by the OMO system has shown a strength in flexibility in the past couple of years. to weather disruptions while our staff across the country have got the experience to prepare for and respond to the COVID outbreaks. Therefore, we're confident that any future outbreaks in other cities will only have limited impact on our business. Experience stands the test of time. One of the strengths about New Rental is the experience and legacy we have built over the years. And this has proven to be the differentiation between us and other players during the challenging period. Leveraging our experience and brand recognition, as well as the very healthy cash balance that has been unharmed during a very difficult time, we have great confidence that the overall business will turn profitable again in the near future. To conclude, we're now taking all kinds of operational actions to promote our key remaining business and investing in the new initiatives which will be the new growth engine that accelerates our recovery. At the same time, we will continue to seek guidance from and cooperate with the government authorities in various province in China in connection with its efforts to comply with the relevant policies, guidelines, and any related implementation rules, regulations, and measures, and to further adjust our business operations as required. With our investment in different strategies, we're optimistic on brighter prospects of our business and believe new company structure falling in the restructuring phase will bring us fruitful returns in the long run. I must mention that these expectations reflect our considerations of the latest regulatory measures in the pandemic situation, as well as our current preliminary view, which is subject to change. At this point, I would like to open the floor for questions. Operator, please open the call for these.
spk05: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and white for your name to be announced. If you wish to withdraw your request, please press the pound or hash key. Our first question comes from Felix Liu from UBS. Please ask your question.
spk00: Thank you, Manjiman, for taking my question. And I'm very pleased to see the resilience you have shown and the tough restructuring due to external environments. My first question is on the restructuring progress. So you mentioned that most of the restructuring are almost finished. So may I know the learning center that you have by the end of the Q3 will be more or less sustainable into the future, or do you expect more closure in the upcoming months? And my second part of the question is on the accounting of the restructuring cost. Unfortunately, I noticed that you have termed it loss-making in this quarter. So may I know how much of the cost this quarter is related to the one-off restructuring and how much will be ongoing? And maybe any color on the unit economics of your new initiatives will be much appreciated. Thank you.
spk08: Thank you, Philip. Your first question is about learning center. You know, in the last physical year end, we had the 1,669 learning centers in total. And in this quarter end, we have 847 learning centers. And we plan to close down some of the learning centers. So we expect the learning center number will be decreased to 650 to 700 in this fiscal year end. So this is my answer for the learning center numbers of your question. And yeah. Yeah, we're in the restructuring phase. And I think, you know, the one-off cost related to the learning center closed down and the employee layoff were already accrued in the first half of this year. So that means we have already recorded most of the one-time cost into the first half of this year. Yeah, you saw the loss in this quarter, but I think it's mainly due to the new investments for the new initiatives for the future. So, you know, but I think it's worthy because, you know, we started the five, the new camps for the business, like the academic tutoring, like the intelligent learning system devices, and then like the study tour camps, where some like the exams for the college students to get the bachelor's degree. So those new initiatives, need the new investment to build up the good future. And so now we are in a new investment phase. But we do believe those new initiatives will make profit in the near future. So I think we do believe in the next fiscal year or near future, we can be profitable. Because first of all, you know, the legacy business, the domestic tax prep, the adult English, and the domestic tax prep, and the overseas consultant business, all the legacy businesses are profitable. And we do believe the new businesses will be profitable. So I think the margin profile will be optimistic in the coming new fiscal year. Thanks.
spk05: Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, 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. Our next question comes from DS Team from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
spk01: Hi, Steven. Hi, Sissy. Thanks for resuming the visual call, and I hope you are safe and well in Beijing. I actually have a couple of questions, but because of the reminder, I will ask one question here, and I will try to ask again later. In terms of the revenues in third quarter, if you look into the details, number one, how much of that third quarter revenue happened in December versus Jan-Feb of this year? And in relation to that, you know, how much of the, roughly how much was the new initiative, those that you mentioned, like non-academic intelligent learning systems and whatnot, how big was it, the revenue contribution in the third quarter?
spk08: Okay, for the revenue contribution in this quarter, you know, I think the December revenue is a little bit higher than the revenue of the January and February because we closed down the K-9 business by the end of last calendar year. In December, we did have some K-9 tutoring courses and we reported revenue. The new business, the non-academic courses, it's quite new. We just launched the business, the non-academic courses, a couple of months ago. Now it's a little bit small, but it's grown very fast. The new business, what I mean, including the non-academic courses and some like the the new service related to the intelligent learning system, I think will contribute more revenue in next year. So I believe the new business will contribute over 20% of the revenue contribution next year. So you saw the growth is extremely high.
spk05: Thank you. Next question comes from LC Shane from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
spk02: Thank you, management. My question is also related to the new business. So is there any data that you could share, for example, like the retention rate for the new non-academic courses? And also, how do you see the competition in this area? Thank you.
spk08: Actually, we started a new business a couple of months ago, but it developed very quickly. We have seen the student retention rate is getting higher and higher. In some of the main cities, we were seeing the student retention rate of the non-academic courses is close to the retention rate of the academic courses last year. It's a good result, good news for us. And I know the revenue contribution is small, but it grows very fast. And the second of the competition, I think the competition is still there. But upon the whole market environment changes, so I do believe the competition will become less. Because we have seen a lot of our competitors disappear from the market. So the competition is not a problem for us. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Candice Chen from Daiwa. Please ask a question.
spk03: Hello, Suzie and Stephen. Thank you for taking my question. And I would like to ask about the recovery of the overseas and domestic test prep businesses so far because of the easing of those border control in other countries. And at the same time, I also noticed that the domestic test prep business revenue growth has looked very strong. So overall for next fiscal year, how does this test prep business revenue growth will look like and what kind of development for the domestic test prep has been done over the past year to achieve that strong growth? Thank you.
spk08: Yeah, great question. Yeah, you know, despite we, you know, we are in the restructuring phase, but, you know, we're happy to see the domestic test prep business and the overseas related business, you know, grow very fast. in the last couple of months. And, you know, oversea task rep and consultant business, you know, the revenue increase is about, totally, it's about 15% year-over-year. Oversea task rep, 8%, and consultant business, 26% in the first nine months of this year. And, yeah, we know the pandemic is still in some other countries, even in China, but, you know, actually what we're seeing some students still enroll the Overseas Test Lab classes because for most of our Overseas Test Lab students are the high school students and the college students. They made the decision to study abroad someday, so they don't have to change their decision. I do believe the human beings can beat the coronavirus. So I do believe our oversea test breath business and consultant business will be growth in a meaningful rate in the coming new year, in fiscal year 2023. And the domestic test breath, you know there's As news recently in China, more and more the university and college students choose to take the Chinese GRE, the Chinese exam. I think the market is booming. I think we are one of the dominators of this part of the business. Since two years ago, Internally, we arrange an internal submission of the Chinese GRE departments, the adult English, and the domestic test lab. And we moved some talent people from the K-12 business to the domestic test lab. So I think we prepared for this market for the last two to three years. So I do believe the domestic tax prep will grow very fast and will generate more and more profits for new rentals. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Lucy Yu from Bank of America. Please ask a question.
spk07: Thank you, Stephen, for taking my question. My question is more on the margin side. You mentioned the remaining business is profitable. So can you share us the probability of those remaining businesses? And for the new business, you also mentioned it will turn profitable next fiscal year. So what's our expectation of the margin for those new businesses in the upcoming year? Thank you.
spk08: Okay. The Alexa business, the overseas test lab and consulting business, typically the margin is the 15% to 20%. And domestic tax prep, the margin is around 10%. And the new business, you don't know, we suffered a little bit a lot. But I do believe next year will be profitable for the new business. And I do believe, theoretically, the margin of the new business will together like the 20% somewhere. And so it's a good business.
spk05: Thank you. Our next question comes from Li-Ping Zhao from CICC. Please ask a question.
spk04: Thanks, Stephen and Cici, for taking my question. So glad to see that you have made progress in some new initiatives. So may I know which one will most likely be the future key revenue contributor And what's EDU's competitive advantage in that direction? Thank you.
spk08: Yeah, we're exploring new business opportunities, including like the five, the new business. So, you know, the, firstly, the dynamic tutoring, you know, focus on helping the students to improve their innovative ability and comprehensive quality. And, you know, such as programming, robot design, present skill, art, sports, you know, grow very fast. Because, you know, I think the double deduction, the new policy last year, you know, we're seeing that the students have more time during the weekend, during the holidays. So, and, you know, the parents, you know, love to see their kids to improve their comprehensibility. So... This is number one. Number two, we launched the intelligent learning system and device. It's utilized our past teaching experience and data technologies to help the students to do the self-study by themselves. I think the system helped them a lot. The students and parents love the new product. And so those two are the products, the non-endemic courses and the intelligent learning system devices will contribute more revenue going forward.
spk05: All right. Thank you. We're now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call back to New Oriental's Executive President and CFO Stephen Young for his closing remarks.
spk08: 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.
spk05: Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.
Disclaimer