Gaotu Techedu - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome for the Gaotu Techedu First Quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms. Catherine Chen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Catherine.

Catherine Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining Gaotu's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Catherine, and I'll help host the earnings call today. Gaotu's earnings release for the quarter was distributed earlier, and it's available on the company's IR website at irgaotu.cn, as well as through PR Newswire services. Joining the call with me tonight from Gaotu's senior management is Mr. Larry Chen, Gaotu's Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, and Ms. Shannon Shen, Gaotu's Chief Financial Officer. Larry will first provide the business highlights for the quarter, and then afterwards, Shannon will discuss our financial performance in more detail. Following their prepared remarks, we'll open the floor to questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward-looking statements are based upon management's current beliefs and expectations, as well as the current market and operating conditions, and they involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict, and many of which are beyond the company's control, as they cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Further information regarding risks and other risks is included in the company's public filing with the U.S. SEC. The company does not entertain any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required under a proof of law. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures for comparative purposes only, for a definition of non-GAAP financial measures, and reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results. Please refer to our First Quarter earnings release published earlier today.

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a live and archived webcast of this conference call will be available on Gaotu's IR website. It is now my pleasure to introduce our Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Larry Chen.

Larry Chen (Founder, Chairman, and CEO)

Good evening and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Gaotu Techedu's First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to each of you for your interest in and support of Gaotu Techedu. Before I start, I would like to remind everyone that all financial figures discussed today are quoted in RMB, unless stated otherwise. Over the past year, we have consistently executed on our strategic priorities, driving meaningful progress across product innovation, organizational development, technological advancement, and operational excellence. These efforts have fueled a transformative business expansion while also comprehensively enhancing our organizational capabilities. As we enter 2025, we sustained our robust growth momentum, delivering results that surpassed market expectations across revenue, profitability, user growth, and organizational efficiency.

Notably, our substantial profit realization represents the quarter's most significant milestone, replicating the effectiveness of our efforts to enhance operational leverage and improve cost efficiency. In the first quarter of 2025, our revenue increased by about 58% year-over-year to nearly RMB 1.5 billion, exceeding the upper end of our ideals. Operating profit reached RMB 34.8 million, with net income of RMB 124.0 million. On a non-GAAP basis, net income reached RMB 137.3 million, with a net margin of 9.2%. These financial results not only reflect strong top-line momentum, but also underscore our disciplined approach to high-quality growth and marginal improvement. In addition, we consistently prioritize shareholder returns and remain committed to creating long-term value for our shareholders. During the quarter, we allocated approximately RMB 136 million to our share repurchase program. Under the current buyback plan, the accumulated total amount of stock buybacks had reached RMB 460 million.

The cumulative number of ADS repurchased represents 9.0% of our total outstanding shares as of March 31, 2025, serving as an incentive lever to enhance shareholder returns. As of the same date, we had cash and cash equivalents, fixed cash, and short-term and long-term investments totaling about RMB 3.5 billion, underpinning our future strategic initiatives and sustainable growth. These robust financial achievements are the direct outcome of the strategic investments and transformative initiatives we have pursued over the past three years. Particularly, last year's investments in products, users, and offline businesses are now becoming key engines, driving revenue growth, operational efficiency, and profitability. By embedding AI deeply into our educational products and learning services, we are accelerating the formation of a technology-empowered value loop in education. This has led to tangible advancements in user experience and learning outcomes, laying a solid foundation for the company's future growth and profitability.

Next, I would like to share our strategic progress and key highlights this quarter from four dimensions. First, we remain deeply user-centric, driving both scale and value through continuous product innovation. Our traditional learning services continued to grow steadily, with strong performance in both student enrollment and user satisfaction. Building on this foundation, we have broadened our offerings to address diverse user needs, from online and offline academic tutoring services to breakthrough in personalized learning solutions for high school students, as well as expanded services for college students and study-abroad consulting and test prep. In addition to being closely aligned with users' genuine needs, these new products are steadily amplifying our network effects and economies of scale as they evolve into a replicable growth model that effectively elevates our brand awareness and market penetration.

Second, we are fully leveraging our core advantages as a digital native education company, continuously advancing the widespread application and innovation of AI technology across multiple aspects. On the product front, we capitalized on the appeal of our starred instructors and successfully launched the Learn Spoken English with Daniel Wu program, a groundbreaking upgrade that reimagined the learning experience by seamlessly integrating flagship instructor IP with AI technology. By combining the magnetic influence of renowned instructors with AI's interactive capabilities, we delivered a highly immersive and personalized learning experience that greatly boosted learner motivation and engagement. On the service side, we have leveraged our outstanding tutors' best practices to train our AI models and develop our intelligent diagnostic function. This feature helps tutors identify students' learning gaps and generate personalized learning reports, enhancing service efficiency and precision while enabling the scalable replication of high-quality learning services.

The tool has already demonstrated tangible impacts in real-world learning settings, paving the way for cross-domain and multi-grid expansion. In operations, we are harnessing AI to empower refined user traffic operations, sharpen segmentation, and implement pairs strategies. By matching the optimal operating models to the characteristics of each user segment, we are improving both traffic value and workforce productivity. The broad adoption of AI technology has also accelerated workflow optimization across departments, further enhancing internal management efficiency and amplifying operational leverage. At the strategic level, we continue to systematically advance our AI transformation initiatives. We have deepened our forward-looking positioning and decision-making capabilities in the AI field, initiating joint AI laboratory development and collaboration with top universities and leading talents. Through these partnerships, we are pioneering breakthrough innovations that balance technological advancement with practical implementation across diverse operational applications.

We aim to drive educational innovations through AI, building a more intelligent, personalized, and scalable educational ecosystem that delivers premium learning experiences for users while creating sustainable growth and enduring value for the company. Third, we continue to invest in building long-term competitiveness by enhancing organizational efficiency and strengthening our talent pipeline. Outstanding teachers are at the core of our educational edge. We are committed to advancing talent acquisition, professional development, and incentive mechanisms while placing an equal emphasis on teaching excellence and service orientation. By leveraging AI tools, we continuously enhance employee satisfaction and reduce repetitive work while allowing teachers to fully convey the human touch and care that are essential to education. We truly believe that a warm, well-structured teaching force is a bedrock for delivering consistent educational quality and elevating user satisfaction. Fourth, we remain dedicated to social responsibility while enhancing shareholder value over the long run.

Rewarding shareholders has always been a central part of our development strategy. Building on our previous buyback plan, our board and directors today approved a new share repurchase program of up to $100 million over the next three years, effective upon completion of the current program. Moving forward, we will continue to optimize our capital structure and enhance shareholder returns while ensuring adequate funding and strategic execution. Today's Gaotu stands as the result of sustained reinvestments, continuous adaptations, and unwavering commitment. Throughout this journey, we have navigated market cycles and made pivotal strategic choices, always guided by our fundamental belief in the value of education and our dedication to future innovation. Looking ahead, we are confident that while sustaining profitable growth, we possess the resources and capabilities to invest in the future, push boundaries, and unleash innovation. Thank you very much, everyone.

This is the end of my prepared remarks. Now, I will pass the call over to our CFO, Shannon, to walk you through the quarter's financial and operational details.

Shannon Shen (CFO)

Thank you, Larry. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. I will now walk you through our operating and financial performance for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. We started the year strongly with a high-quality performance in the first quarter, achieving profitable at scale while maintaining robust growth momentum. Revenue maintained its rapid growth trajectory, making the third consecutive quarter with year-over-year growth exceeding 50%. The core business has demonstrated a stronger growth momentum through strategic enhancement of customer value, efficient health management, and refined operational improvements. We have fully unleashed our operating leverage, providing robust support for continued profit growth.

Our operating margin and net income margin rose by 10.5 and 9.6 percentage points on an annual basis, further affirming the continuous improvement of our profit quality. Meanwhile, deferred revenue amounted to over RMB 1.4 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 44.0%, offering a solid foundation for sustained revenue growth in the subsequent quarters. Driven by dynamic evolution of customer needs, we have strategically invested in improving product quality, expanding our user base, and delivering more personalized and diversified learning solutions in prior years. With the effective execution of these strategies, our revenue structure has become more growth-oriented and sustainable. Notably, our portfolio of non-academic tutoring services, which generated superior customer lifetime value, has emerged as a significant growth engine alongside our traditional learning services. Next, let me walk you through the progress we made during this quarter. Learning services contributed over 95% of net revenues.

Breaking it down, more than 85% of total revenues came from non-academic tutoring services and our traditional learning services, representing over 80% year-over-year growth. Combined gross earnings from these two segments increased by approximately 40% year-over-year. Our new initiatives, focused on online and offline non-academic tutoring services, delivered exceptional growth this quarter. Gross earnings in this segment jumped nearly 90% year-over-year, with gross earnings from new enrollments surging by more than triple digits. Net revenues grew at a triple-digit rate year-over-year, accounting for over 35% of total revenues. This business has achieved triple-digit growth in both revenue and gross earnings from new enrollments for four consecutive quarters. Importantly, as enrollments expanded and educational product quality improved, this segment achieved profitability. We remain focused on users' needs, continually refining curricula with actionable educational insights while optimizing both our course delivery and service responsiveness.

Take our programming courses as an example, where we achieved a retention rate exceeding 90%, a compelling testament to the strong synergy between our value proposition and user trust. Our traditional learning services maintained healthy growth, with revenue growing over 35% year-over-year. With the steady increase in student enrollments, our diverse offerings have increasingly met the needs of different user groups, fostering a positive word-of-mouth referral that has established a solid groundwork for sustained growth. Particularly, the proportion of new enrollments acquired through referrals and private channels increased markedly this quarter, further strengthening brand recognition and market penetration. This progress also highlights our dedicated efforts and accomplishments in driving user expansion and creating long-term value. The other crucial component of our learning services is educational services for college students and adults.

This segment contributed 10% of total revenues this quarter, and its net operating cash inflow increased by over 8% year-over-year. These results speak volumes about the success of our strategic recalibration and resource optimization. Specifically, educational services for college students recorded high double-digit year-over-year growth in both revenue and gross earnings. By equipping tutors with AI tools, we have substantially improved response timelines and students' engagement quality, resulting in steady improvements in user satisfaction and reinforcing our market leadership in the online learning services for college student sector. Additionally, our AI-powered English learning program, Learn Spoken English with Daniel Wu, has already become profitable within a short time following its launch, serving as another endorsement for the commercial viability of integrating content innovation with AI technology and providing a proven model for future initiatives. The education business exhibits distinct seasonality, closely coupled with users' learning behavior.

Consequently, the gross earnings varies across different quarters. Gross earnings generally consist of two main components: new enrollments and retentions. In the first quarter of 2025, gross earnings are primarily driven by new enrollments, whereas in the fourth quarter of prior year, retentions contributed significantly more than new enrollments. Although the quarter-on-quarter gross earnings figures showed a decline in absolute terms, the comparable amount for new enrollments reflects a healthy growth trend both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year on an equitable basis. This solid performance also laid a strong foundation for growth in retentions in the second quarter. From an operating leverage perspective, our general and administrative expenses, combined with research and development expenses, remain stable in this quarter. While ensuring critical investments in AI, educational product innovation, and core technology infrastructure, we are continuously leveraging AI tools to drive efficiencies.

This allows us to eliminate low-value, repetitive tasks, enhance employee satisfaction, and reallocate time and resources toward more creative work. Looking ahead, we expect sustained revenue growth in subsequent quarters, projecting that G&A and R&D expenses will remain relatively stable, thereby enhancing the positive impact of operating leverage on our margin profile and overall financial performance. I will now present our financials in more detail. Our cost of revenue this quarter was RMB 452.5 million. Gross profit increased 54.1% year-over-year to over RMB 1.0 billion, with a gross margin of 69.7%. The year-over-year decrease in gross margin was primarily due to changes in our product mix. Total operating expenses during the quarter increased 33.5% year-over-year to RMB 1.0 billion. Breaking it down, selling expenses increased 40.1% year-over-year this quarter to RMB 709.4 million, accounting for 47.5% of net revenues.

Research and development expenses decreased 0.8% year-over-year to approximately RMB 150.4 million, accounting for 10.1% of net revenues. General and administrative expenses increased 53.3% year-over-year to RMB 145.9 million, accounting for 9.8% of net revenue. Income from operations was RMB 34.8 million, and operating margin was 2.3%. Non-GAAP income from operations was RMB 48.1 million, and non-GAAP operating margin was 3.2%. Net income was RMB 124.0 million, and net income margin was 8.3%. Non-GAAP net income was RMB 137.3 million, and non-GAAP net income margin was 9.2%. Our net operating cash outflow was RMB 477.2 million. Now, turning to our balance sheet. As of March 31, 2025, we held over RMB 1.0 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash, along with more than RMB 1.4 billion in short-term investments and RMB 995.9 million in long-term investments. This comes to a total of about RMB 3.5 billion.

As of March 31, 2025, our deferred revenue balance was over RMB 1.4 billion, primarily consisting of tuition received in advance. As of May 14, 2025, we had repurchased an aggregate of around 22.3 million ADS from approximately RMB 460 million in R&D. Today, our Board of Directors also approved a new share repurchase program of up to $100 million for a period of 36 months, which will take effect upon the completion of the existing one. The new repurchase program is based on management's long-term confidence in the company's stable operations, profit growth, and sustained healthy operating cash flow. We will continue to execute share buybacks according to the Board of Directors' guidance to create a long-term value for our shareholders.

Before I provide our business outlook for the next quarter, please allow me to remind everyone that this contains forward-looking statements, which include risks and uncertainties that are beyond our control and could cause the actual results to differ materially from our predictions. Based on our current estimates, total net revenues for the second quarter of 2025 are expected to be between RMB 1,298 million and RMB 1,380 million, representing an increase of 28.5% to 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. This concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A section. Thank you, everyone, for listening.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two.

For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. For the sake of clarity and order, please ask one question at a time. Management will respond, and then feel free to follow up with your next question. Our first question comes from Crystal Liu from CMS. Please go ahead. Okay.

Crystal Liu (Management and Program Analyst)

Thanks, management, for taking my questions, and congratulations on the very strong results. We saw you achieve a very solid margin in the first quarter. May we know more about the drivers behind this margin expansion? And could you give us some color on your full-year guidance? Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen. It appears we have lost the connection to our speakers. Please stand by while we reconnect. We thank you for your patience. Pardon me, everybody.

We are now rejoined with the speakers. You may now go ahead.

Shannon Shen (CFO)

Sorry, we ran into some technical issues. Thanks, Crystal, for your question. Let me rephrase your question. The first is like the margin proportion of the first quarter. The second question was the guidance for the whole year. Is that right?

Crystal Liu (Management and Program Analyst)

Yes, that's correct. Thank you.

Shannon Shen (CFO)

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Crystal. Before discussing the annual guidance, it's necessary to first explain the seasonality, and it helps to better understand the underlying data and build up more confidence in our business. Education business has distinct seasonality. From the perspective of gross billings, the first and the third quarters are peak new enrollments registration seasons, with gross billings mainly from new students. At the same time, the second and fourth quarters are supported by both new enrollments and retentions.

Gross billings in the second and fourth quarters are significantly higher than those in the first and third quarters. Also affected by Spring Festival and other holidays, the course schedule in individual quarters may be reduced or increased by one or two sessions, which in return affects the revenue recognition. It is highly recommended to analyze the revenue growth rate by the first and the second halves of the year, respectively, instead of just looking into one single quarter. Taking the first half of 2025 as an example, our revenue in the first quarter was approximately RMB 1.5 billion. The upper end of the revenue guidance for the second quarter is RMB 1.3 billion.

Taken together, this represents a 44% year-on-year increase compared to the first half of last year, especially considering that the college students and adult business is still in an adjusting cycle, and it shows a decreased year-over-year on the revenue side. This means that the growth rate for our non-academic tutoring business and traditional business is at a high double-digit level, which is far exceeding the industry average. In terms of the profits, the first and fourth quarters are key stages for concentrated profitability release, which is closely related to the revenue recognition and the new enrollment recruitment cycles. Regarding our gross billings in the first quarter, I also want to add more color. We had RMB 2.16 billion gross billings generated in Q4 2024 last year. Retentions accounted for a considerable proportion of these RMB 2.16 billion.

If we make an apple comparison, both the quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth rate from gross billing perspective in Q1 2025 are remarkable. Based on the high base retention in Q4 2024, there will be a relatively concentrated refund period before the start of classes in Q1 this year, which affects part of the gross billings growth rate in the first quarter. Also, decrease in college students and adults partially impacts the increase rate as well, while core business remains strong. When all these factors are considered, our gross billings performance in the first quarter is very strong, with core business still growing at nearly 40% and even higher before refund. It is also important to emphasize that the improvement in our teaching quality is consistent. The application of AI technology has enabled us to do better in terms of the timeliness, accuracy, personalized, and more diversified educational products.

Our retention rate, especially for the new student retention rate and refund rate, are continuously improving. Looking at the whole year, our user base has reached a new level, which will support the achievement of our growth targets for 2025. The layout of our offline business over the past years will also begin to bear fruit and become an important part of the growth engine. Our product innovation and customer acquisition development in the non-academic business have formed a good reputation and have strong word-of-mouth referrals. The growth rate has exceeded 100% for four consecutive quarters in the past. This momentum will also continue. We will achieve an industry-leading growth rate in 2025. In terms of the profit guidance, we are continuously improving profit quality in several aspects.

The first is the continuous improvement in the quality of teaching products and services, leading to the sustained improvement of key metrics such as retention rate and conversion rate, et cetera. The second is the construction of high-quality profit customer acquisition channels to optimize customer acquisition efficiency. The third is to make full use of investments in AI technology to improve operational efficiency, strengthen operating leverage, and enhance employee satisfaction. This also partially addressed your question about the proportion of the profitability in the fourth quarter. The margin in fourth quarter also contributed by the higher customer acquisition efficiency as well as the operating leverage. We expect that the profitability of each quarter in 2025 will improve significantly compared with the same period last year and ultimately drive the overall fulfillment of the annual bottom-line targets. Thanks, Crystal.

Crystal Liu (Management and Program Analyst)

Thank you. That's very clear.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Elsie Sheng from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Elsie Sheng (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you, management. Thank you for taking my question. And congratulations on the strong growth momentum and also the profitability. I have a question related to the sector demand side. We know that we're now facing a relatively weak macro, but we also know that education demand is relatively more resilient. I would also be interested to check that do you observe any changes on the K-12 demand side compared to maybe one year ago? Are there any changes on the parents' preference in terms of the course format or the course content, et cetera? Thank you.

Shannon Shen (CFO)

Thanks, Elsie. This is a really good question because we are a customer-oriented company, and we always focus on the demand from our customers.

Indeed, we have observed several changes in students and parents along with the change of macroeconomics, their parents' expectations, their shift in education concepts, and also the technological involvement. First, the demand for children's comprehensive development has been continuously increasing. Beyond traditional academic performance, parents are gradually increasing investments in their children's all-around growings, including critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, responsibility, teamwork, and especially their physical and mental health. Gaotu has keenly captured this trend and continues to actively promote high-quality content. Through multi-scenarios coverage of online and offline channels, we create immersive learning experiences for students to cultivate their creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, et cetera. Also, our non-academic training is gradually becoming a core driver of business growth. These all derive from the change of the demand from our customers.

From an operational metrics perspective, the retention rate of non-academic tutoring has continued to rise, particularly in our coding business when the rate exceeded 90% in the first quarter, as I just mentioned in my prepared remarks. Second, parents and students have shown increasing acceptance of technology-driven educational solutions, further promoting us to accelerate the deep integration of AI technology with teaching scenarios. We saw in a lot of social media that parents started to prepare some small sessions for their children by those AI tools. This also innovated us about our new initiatives in our educational product. Also empowered by AI, we have significantly improved the timeliness of teacher responses and the quality of integrations with students, enhancing their satisfaction. Now, the time we respond to the students' spontaneous requests is much more short than before.

Third, the demand for more personalized education among students and parents has gradually increased. We saw some demand rising in some one-on-one sessions, et cetera, because it's more personalized and more diversified. However, we also observed that parents' pursuit and recognition of high-quality education resources remain constant, which means particularly for excellent teachers and premium teaching content, these are the essence and always not changing for the parents and the students. They are all what we are constantly building for. Thanks, Elsie.

Elsie Sheng (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. It's very clear.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Eunice Liu from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Eunice Liu (Research Analyst)

Good evening, Larry and Shannon. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on solid results. My question is on the operating cash flow. I noticed that the operating cash flow this quarter was negative and was more than twice its level for the first quarter last year.

Could management elaborate on the reason behind? Thank you.

Shannon Shen (CFO)

Thanks. This is also a very good question. Thanks for diving into these details. Regarding the increase in operating cash outflow in the fourth quarter compared to the same period of last year, this is primarily due to the payment of 2024 annual bonuses and incremental labor costs in the fourth quarter. As our business scales, the number of our teachers has correspondingly increased as well. The cash we invested in employees in the first quarter will leverage and contribute larger cash inflow in the following quarters. Based on our efficiency improvements and profit enhancements, we expect the operating cash inflow of 2025 to be at least three times that of the full year of 2024.

This implies that we will be having a net operating cash inflow of over $100 million this year. This is also the source of confidence for the board and management to additionally approve an extra $100 million share repurchase plan today. We thank shareholders and investors for the long-term support, and we will continue to create greater value for shareholders. Leveraging the positive cash flow we expected to generate this year, we will do a better job on this task. Thanks.

Eunice Liu (Research Analyst)

Thank you. It's very helpful.

Operator (participant)

As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

Catherine Chen (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. Have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our investor relations department or our management via email at [email protected] directly.

You are also welcome to subscribe to our news alert on the company IR site. Thank you very much again for your time. Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.