Chinese educational services provider New Oriental recorded a net loss of more than $876 million in six months last year, according to a finance results report released by the company on Tuesday.
During the six-month financial period ending November 30, 2021, New Oriental recorded a net revenue of $1.967 billion. It recorded a net loss of $876 million last year, compared with a profit of $229 million in the previous year.
New Oriental said that it has stopped providing curriculum-based tutoring courses to students from kindergarten level to the ninth grade, which has significantly hit the company’s business revenue.
In addition, New Oriental’s costs and expenses for the six months ending November 30, 2021, increased due to expenses arising from the termination of many tutoring contracts and the implementation of layoff plans.
Yu Minhong, founder of the company, believes that “the New Oriental can continue to develop” and said that various new businesses and transformation in businesses are progressing now, and some of restructuring has achieved initial results.
Yu said on his official WeChat account on Wednesday that New Oriental has recently reached a cooperation agreement with China Overseas Study Talent Development Foundation to focus on international talent training along the Belt and Road countries.
Yu said erlier that New Oriental cut 60,000 jobs and saw its operating income plunge by 80 percent in 2021, after Chinese regulators tightened scrutiny on curriculum-based private tutoring last year.
After calling off school curriculum tutoring services, New Oriental is aiming to provide more targeted projects for students’ all-round growth, and increase investment in the college student market and the overseas market, Yu said.
Meanwhile, New Oriental Education & Technology Group will carry out live streaming services and an e-commerce platform centering on the sales of agricultural products.
The data shows that the transformation of New Oriental into live-streaming platform has just begun. Since the debut on December 28, the company has introduced a total of 335 products through live streaming. The cumulative sales were worth only 4.54 million yuan ($0.71 million) in two months.
A New Oriental school in Beijing Photo: VCG
