Chinese education stocks rally

(Sept 22) Gaotu Techedu rose over 10%. TAL Education jumped over 5%, New Oriental Education & Technology Group advabced over 4%.

Beijing-based Gaotu Techedu is soaring after Q2 netrevenuesrose 35.3% Y/Y to RMB2.23B.

The company said the increase was mainly driven by the growth in paid course enrollments for K-12 courses during the period from the Q4 2020 to Q2 2021, which was contributed by both first-time paid course enrollments and retention of existing students.

Q2 net revenues was partially attributable to the paid course enrollments Q4 2020.

Net revenues of online K-12 courses increased 51.0% Y/Y to RMB2.09B.

"In the second quarter, we have upgraded our organizational structure. We will continue to develop in the area of professional education, STEAM education, vocational education and product digitalization. In exploring professional education, the public office exam sector has maintained its relatively high level; paid users in the financial certificate sector have increased 4 times year over year," said CFO Shannon Shen.

Cost of revenues rose by 100.8% to RMB724.3M, mainly due to increase in recruitment, compensation and learning material cost and rental expenses.

Non-GAAP net loss was RMB763.9M, compared with non-GAAP net income of RMB72.7M in the prior year period.

Net loss was RMB918.8M, compared with net income of RMB18.6M in Q2 2020.

Gross profit increased 16.9% to RMB1.51B.

However, gross profit margin decreased to 67.6% from 78.1% in Q2 2020.

The decrease was mainly due to the increase in compensation for instructors.

Non-GAAP gross profit increased by 18.2% to RMB1.54B.

Meanwhile, non-GAAP gross profit margin decreased to 69.1% from 79.1% in the same period of 2020.