In 2023, China's public education revenue was 6.965438 billion yuan, down 38.3% year-on-year, and its net profit was-2.37 billion yuan, down 202.8% year-on-year.
After the release of the 2023 Annual Report and the 2022 First Quarterly Report on April 28th this year, Zhonggong Education received an inquiry letter from Shenzhen Stock Exchange on June 8th.
Recently, Zhonggong Education issued a 63-page reply to the inquiry letter. The business data behind the performance explosion in 2023 was disclosed in detail, especially the agreement income and its refund scale that brought great risks.
The reply shows that in 2023, the total public education revenue in China was 20.43 billion yuan, and the total return amount was 65.438+053 billion yuan. In 2023, the number of trainees was 3.849 million, and the number of refunds was1.626,5438+0.000.
The refund amount in 2023 increased by 52.88% compared with that in 2020.
It is worth noting that many problems of public education in China are industrial. In 2022, ensuring profits and cash flow will become the common choice of the whole industry.
The reply of Chinese public education also clarified the direction of the civil service examination and training industry.
Increase the number of advisory groups under fierce competition.
In 2020, when the epidemic broke out, public examinations and public institution examinations were postponed to the second half of the year, but unexpectedly, the civil service examination and training industry was booming.
The enrollment expansion of civil servants, institutions and teachers in various places has caused fierce competition in the civil service examination and training industry.
According to Zhonggong Education Finance News, in 2020, the revenue was11200 million yuan, and the net profit was 2.3 billion yuan, both of which were record highs.
Another leading position of chalk technology is that in 2020, the total number of people paying for training courses and online products will reach 9.6 million.
In the second year, the head office rushed to build a campus and launched fierce competition. The recurrent cost of the company soared, and the fierce competition only lasted for about a year.
Agreement class is the most important class in civil service examination and training. The fee for the agreement class is higher, but it can be refunded according to whether it passes the written test or interview.
In 2023, in order to cope with the adverse effects of the market environment and fierce industry competition, Zhonggong Education responded: "The promotion of high-refund classes was strengthened and the use of student funds was increased. The implementation of these measures has led to an increase in the amount of refunds to a certain extent. "
From 20 19 to 2023, the fees refunded by Chinese public education were 44. 14%, 46.54% and 68.46% respectively, and the fees refunded were 7.42 billion yuan and 100 153 billion yuan respectively.
When the student credit model is adopted, the retirement rate is higher. According to the statistics of the financial department, the retirement rates from 20/KLOC-0 to 9-2023 are 68.46%, 73.06% and 82.94% respectively.
This is because the loan is mainly used for the repayable part of students, mainly for courses with difficult exams. In practice, students who use loans are not fully prepared for exams, so their refund rate is generally higher than the overall comprehensive refund rate of the company.
The high unit price of the agreement class can bring a lot of income to the company.
For example, in the first three quarters of 2023, more than 83% of the students in the agreement class chose the course type with the price of1-50,000 yuan, and more than1%of the students in the agreement class chose the course type with the price of more than 50,000 yuan.
High refund agreement is an industry phenomenon.
Chalk technology prospectus shows that as of September 30, 2023, the debt refunded reached 775 million yuan, and the income in the same period was only 2.63 billion yuan.
The decrease of income and the increase of payment directly affect the company's cash flow. Under the favorable market prospect, the agreement class supports the substantial growth of the company's income and the number of students, but it has become a risk point that cannot be ignored under the uncertain market situation.
At the performance briefing held on May 1 1, Zhonggong Education said that the products with high refund rate continued to decline in the first quarter of this year.
Protect cash flow
It can be seen that public education in China is committed to improving cash flow.
The reply is written like this. "The company's current business is normal. With the determination of the provincial test time, other large-scale experiments have also been carried out. The company's ability to form cash flow for sustainable operation is the fundamental guarantee for the company's sustainable operation.
"
How tight is the cash flow of public education in China?
The 2023 financial report shows that the net cash flow generated by the operating activities of Zhonggong Education was-4.098 billion yuan, compared with 4.882 billion yuan last year, a year-on-year decrease of 65,438+083.93%.
In 2023, the net income was only 5 1 100 million yuan, while the operating cost of public education in China was 5.3 billion yuan.
A founder of an online vocational education institution told 2 1 Century Business Herald: "In 2023, the cash flow of public education in China was about-4 billion yuan, and short-term loans from banks were about one billion yuan, so they may have eased the cash pressure through short-term loans.
If one day the bank stops lending, the operating pressure can be imagined.
"
Fortunately, this did not happen.
The reply only indicated that due to the company's operating losses and other factors, the loan approval time of the company's original loan bank was extended after the loan expired.
By the time the reply was sent, the credit balance of Zhonggong Education Bank was 654.38+0.95 billion yuan.
Other civil service examination and training institutions are actually short of money.
In February 2023, Chalk Technology received a huge loan of 390 million US dollars. According to its prospectus, as of September 30 of that year, the book cash was only about 850 million yuan, including the agreement advance payment.
"If the subsequent refund is continued, the final book cash may be negative, so Chalk Technology needs to go public for financing.
"The founder of the above-mentioned online vocational education institution said.
It is a common phenomenon for online education companies to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.
The Deputy Secretary-General of Zhonggong Education said that he would change the business philosophy of heavy asset investment, start to dispose of long-term assets such as land that has not been put into development for the time being, cancel redundant categories, and focus on core categories such as graduate students, IT and education.
In the first quarter of this year, the net cash flow of public education in China improved to 599 million yuan.
Understand industry trends
The reply of Chinese public education also clarified the overall trend of the industry.
First of all, can a high-end package costing tens of thousands of yuan last? According to the letter, in the first quarter of this year, the consumption of high-end students dropped significantly.
Some students tend to choose some small training institutions with lower local prices when investing in education. Since last year, educational institutions have laid off employees in succession, which has led many retired teachers to organize and set up many scattered small institutions, which has had a certain impact on the company's enrollment.
However, the reply shows that the core factors of the company's leading position in the industry have not changed, and no significant decline in market share has been found.
In the future, with the reduction of high-refund products, high-fee packages will return to rationality, and the phenomenon of "high-priced public examination training courses" will be alleviated, but the brand effect of the industry will not be weakened. Institutions still need to build brands by improving service quality in order to gain a firm foothold in the market.
Secondly, how does the public service research and training industry maintain user operations? In the reply, the annual accountant's statistics on students' repurchase show that 1.2 1% has received money more than five times.
The main reason for repeated purchases is that students can successfully find jobs and enroll in multiple examination courses within one year; Students failed the exam that year and continued to attend the second year's class; During the promotion period, students will buy small courses many times, and students will add miscellaneous fees to the training courses.
Chen Dong, the founder of Gaotu, told the educational administration teacher that unlike K 12 education, the repurchase rate of vocational and adult education business is almost negligible.
The repurchase rate of public education in China 1.2 1% confirms this view, which means that vocational and adult education places special emphasis on brand effect and educational effect. Due to the lack of user experience, it will be difficult to recover the loss after the loss of users.
Third, can the vocational and adult education industry be purely online? In the reply, the annual review conducted a surprise inspection of the live broadcast of the double division, and the attendance rate was 78.57%.
"Double-qualified" live class is OMO class. One teacher is responsible for the live class (usually a famous teacher), and the other teacher is responsible for the on-site supervision of students.
It is generally believed that the attendance rate of online mode is higher than that of online mode, while most users in vocational and adult education industries need to take care of work and family, and the online attendance rate is often low.
Therefore, the mainstream mode of vocational and adult education institutions is OMO, not pure online mode. The attendance data of Chinese public education once again confirms this reality.
In practice, in recent years, the proportion of online business in public service research and training industry has increased.
The proportion of online cluster of Chinese public education increased from 20 19 16.45% to 37.9438+0% in 2023.
There are two main reasons for this. Support online publishing low-cost courses instead of online teaching to obtain customers.
In the future, different and complementary OMO modes of online positioning may continue.
For details, please download 2 1 financial APP.
If you have any questions about the self-taught/adult-taught examination, don't know the contents of the test sites for self-taught/adult-taught examination, and don't know the local policies for self-taught/adult-taught examination, click on Mr. official website at the bottom to get the review materials for free: /xl/