Gong Haiyan launched her new online education product

Text / Juan horse

On July 14, Gong Haiyan, who started her business continuously, launched her new online education product, Nahao Net , which is mainly engaged in interactive live broadcasting of primary and secondary schools . After a year of training, The third online education product introduced during the time.

Gong Haiyan so frequent and intensive start-up is a microcosm of the hot investment in China's online education status quo. According to a Deloitte research report, in 2013, on average, 2.3 online education companies were established in China each day. In the past year, dozens of domestic online education enterprises, large and small, have received investment.

Not only entrepreneurs, investors optimistic, the traditional Internet giant, offline training Gangster also have to spend huge sums of money into the field of online education, with their own advantages, trying to dominate the field of online education.

From the online school in the mid-1990s to the outbreak of various types of online education companies today, it is China's huge demand for potential education. However, behind the upsurge, there are bubble worries. It is foreseeable that in the next few years, most companies in the field of online education will be in danger of survival, and the entire online education industry will also be reshaped.

As good future CEO Zhang Bangxin said in a recent internal mail, "The online education is surging and the mobile Internet is changing in this industry. In the face of the trend of this vast soup market, it can be said that the pros and cons Death. "Visible, the field is fiercely competitive.

Is online education going from the Blue Ocean to the Red Sea and even to the sea of ​​blood? In this competition, we should focus on which companies, which will become the "leader" of online education, and the last laugh?

Online education crowds

Globally, online education has taken a sweeping trend.

South Korea announced that it would repeal paper textbooks in 2015. In Japan, since 1998, 60 credits for 124 credits required for undergraduate studies can be obtained through distance learning. President Barack Obama said in 2013 that he hoped in the next four years , 99% of American students complete their studies through the Internet.

In recent years, the Chinese government has also continuously improved its openness to private education and placed emphasis on the application of information technology to achieve equity in education and resource sharing. The "Broadband China" strategy, the "Plan for National Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)", the deployment of "Education Information Network" and the active promotion of MOOC curriculum construction all play a facilitating role in online education to a certain extent .

From a market perspective, the scale of online education has grown rapidly in recent years.

According to iResearch statistics report, in 2008 China's online education market was about 35.2 billion yuan, up to 83.9 billion by 2013. It is estimated that in 2014 China's online education market will be nearly 100 billion yuan. The number of online education users reached 67 million in 2013.

Although the growth of online education is rapid, but from the point of view of mass, there is still a big gap with the offline training giants. But as a trend, almost all off-line training giants are aware that online education is the future, and stepping up to the online layout from offline.

For example, after learning how to make a better future, the company will position itself as "a company that uses science and technology and the Internet to promote educational progress," and will integrate traditional education with online education. At the same time, we started a diversified layout and invested in several online education companies.

Education and training industry giant New Oriental also felt a deep sense of crisis, trying to inject himself into the Internet genes. For K12 (primary, middle and high school) training, New Oriental launched a platform based on multi-port interaction between PCs, mobile terminals and offline classrooms, and will continue its efforts in 2014 FY10.

Science education will be its internal teaching resources and educational management system, and gradually achieve SoLoMo (ie social + local + mobile mobile localization), and gradually offline business online.

In addition to training industry big brother, the Internet giant BAT (Baidu, Ali, Tencent) and Qihoo 360 also spontaneously burst into the field of education.

Baidu through the middle of education intentions to achieve multiple ranking charges, integration of library resources to launch the curriculum area, investment education platform network. Taobao classmates through free promotion, the curriculum consists of quality video broadcast and online live composition, the course category is rich, from flower arrangements, make-up to civil service examinations. Tencent on the one hand launched Tencent boutique course, the content main original practical content; the other hand, in the official version of QQ2009 SP5, an increase of PPT and other education-related basic functions; Qihoo 360 build learning and course search platform, search + site navigation Online school.

It can be said that the traditional Internet giants rely on the strong traffic advantages and economies of scale to make the online education market more competitive.

In the past year or two, online education companies frequently reported news of tens of millions of dollars in financing, and on the other hand, investors have been optimistic about online education. On July 16, a job network announced the successful acquisition of about $ 20 million in round C financing. Rough estimate, since 2013, there are about 10 online education enterprises that have obtained financing of over 10 million U.S. dollars. Among them, Philharmonic, Shanghai Hugh Cyber ​​School, Baby Tree, VIPABC, started it, work together and so financing more than 20 million US dollars.

Who is the "leader"?

Although the concept of hot online education, investment enthusiasm, but the size of the revenue but the traditional education business is still not quite the same. For example, according to the data, the size of the after-class counseling industry can reach 200 billion yuan in 2014. For comparison, the annual market share of online training is only about 300 million yuan, a huge gap.

At present, there are not many online education companies with over 100 million in revenue. For example, New Oriental Online, China NetEase, Learning NetEase and Huanggang Net School have the advantage of low cost and simple mode, but their mode is not sustainable optimism.

More online education companies that take big data, real-time interaction and mobile learning as their selling points are still "burning money" and are still far from making profits.

In February of this year, Reunion Times (Nasdaq: YY) announced the establishment of an independent education brand called "100 Education" to provide free real-time online interactive teaching services and free up-to-date educational services such as TOEFL and IELTS training. The industry caused a great deal of vibration. In the competitive model of free mode, online education is more profitable to test the innovation ability of online education enterprises.

At the same time, China's online education enterprises are more focused on technologies or platforms or models than traditional digital learning content in the United States, but true content development is still scarce.

It can be expected that in the next few years, the online education industry will inevitably have a round of elimination and shuffling. Some enterprises will come to the fore and some will disappear, and eventually the reshaping of the entire industry will be completed.

In this race, factors such as technology, products, patterns, content, teams, funding chains, etc., can all be key to determining whether an online education company will be either alive or dead.

Here, we chose a group of industry "leader" as a sample observation. The criteria for choosing "front runners" are relatively subjective, with few exceptions: a large amount of financing, being bullish on investors, a large number of users, innovative models, breakthroughs in content and experience, substantial profitability, interesting team, strong storytelling and many more.

We will be in close contact with these "Top Runners" at the helm, investors, in-depth understanding of its users, models, content, etc., concerned about its growth context.

Of course, these "leaders" can not be the last laugh, which can be the last laugh, but also time to answer.