“We are now at a turning point of the era, traditional education will end at a lightning speed, like the avalanche. Traditional education companies such as New Oriental are facing huge risks, because Internet education does not require classrooms... ” said by Xu Xiaoping, one of the"troikas" ofNew Oriental. He later turned into an investor and predicted that if Lei Jun and Yu Minhong both involve into Internet education, he bet Lei Jun will be the winner.
Now, Lei Jun really makes a move. 100.com firstly aims at one of the largest sources of income for traditional education institutions – foreign language training. 100.com takes IELTS and TOEFL training as the entry point, holds high the banner of free, and even “subsidize”, giving the bonus ofRMB 99 yuan to the course finishing students, hitting the crush of New Oriental.
The investment in online education market in February was a wave one after another.
Yao Ming came. On February 27th, VIPABC, the high-end and online education giant of EF, launched a new platform of online education for young people. Yao Mingspoke for the company of “Shanghai Height”. Yang Zhengda, CEOof VIPABC, said that this round of financing will be used to accelerate the development in Asia and focus on expanding the American market. VIPABC symbols the second spring of the business. The parent company Tutor Group, which was established in 2004, received a round of 100 million U.S. dollars financing in February 2014. This is the world's largest investment in this field.
Lei Jun came. On February 25th, Huanju Shidai company (YY),which has entered the online education business for threeyearsin a low profile, launched an independent online education brand of “100 education” in a high-profile. Chairman Lei Jun said that thedomain(100.com) costs 6.5 million yuan and they will invest 1 billion yuan in the next two years.
Foreign capital was invested. On February 18th, the Chinese version of OpenHPI German online education platform, which has 100,000 users worldwide, was launched. It was co-funded and established by international business software giant SAP (80.29, 0.55, 0.69%), the Hasso-Plattner Research Institute of Germany and Shanghai Guofu Guangqi Cloud Computing Technology Co., Ltd. Dr. Fan Xinjin of Guofu Guangqi Company disclosed to the IT Times that three parties contributed a total of 1 million Euros.
Compared to the United States, the investment fever of China is actually late. Having witnessed the matureUS market, Chinese businessmen quickly smelled business opportunities and then swarmed in. In the past year, billions of funds have entered the online education industry. Online education networks, such as, 51talk, question bank, Hujiang English, have disclosed financing information in succession, and nearly 1,000 new have been added throughout the year.
It is estimated that the business opportunities in the global online education market will reach US$21 billionby 2016.
