Beijing-based ByteDance is finest identified for its viral quick video app TikTok, common amongst youngsters who use the app to submit goofy movies of themselves lip-syncing to music or pulling stunts. However now that it has conquered the quick video market, the corporate is seeking to a youthful demographic for its future progress: Kids of preschool or early major college age.
Since final month, the Chinese language tech powerhouse has launched two apps – GuaGuaLong English, which goals to show two-to-eight-year-olds in China English, and GuaGuaLong Thoughts, which focuses on instructing kindergarten age youngsters between three and 6 years previous arithmetic.
GuaGuaLong is the identify of its synthetic intelligence (AI)-powered “tutor” that serves because the mascot for each apps. The character, who takes the type of a cartoon dragon, can work together with the kids and information them of their research. For instance, it might probably detect when customers are announcing phrases incorrectly on GuaGuaLong English.
ByteDance, the world’s most precious start-up with a valuation of US$75 billion, appears to be like like it’s betting large on the idea. Two of the corporate’s instructional associates have registered greater than 200 “GuaGuaLong” logos since 2018, from “GuaGuaLong coding” to “GuaGuaLong calligraphy,” in keeping with China’s Nationwide Mental Property Administration.
The GuaGuaLong apps are solely out there within the China market, a ByteDance spokeswoman stated, including that the corporate “will constantly discover totally different potentialities of making use of expertise and innovation to training.”
The corporate’s exploration into the web training sector will be traced again to as early as 2017, however its renewed push coincides with a nationwide spike for online schooling brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, with colleges closed and college students pressured to remain residence.
China’s on-line training market is projected to be price 453.eight billion yuan (US$64 billion) by 2020, in keeping with a report by iiMedia Analysis, which additionally estimated that the variety of Ok-12, or from kindergarten to highschool, on-line training customers will attain about 37.7 million by this yr.
In an open letter to mark ByteDance’s eighth anniversary in March, firm founder Zhang Yiming singled out training as a strategic new enterprise route for the corporate, with out mentioning gaming and sectors that it has additionally been exploring.
“[The online education] market is large,” stated Xu Fanlei, vice common supervisor of Shanghai-based consultancy iResearch. “Even when late comers find yourself solely taking a small a part of the market, it’s nonetheless comparatively large.”
The market can also be “fragmented,” with the three or 4 largest gamers, together with New Oriental Schooling and TAL Schooling Group, taking on lower than 5% of the market share in on-line training for Ok-12 college students, Xu stated.
This fragmentation might permit late comers equivalent to ByteDance to consolidate the trade and turn out to be prime gamers, in keeping with Xu. “The trade is much from its closing sport,” he stated, including that there stays a big untapped market particularly in smaller third and fourth tier cities.
US-listed New Oriental reported a revenue of US$137.7 million within the third fiscal quarter ended February 29, up by 41.4%. The corporate’s determination to maneuver all of its offline lessons in China to live-streamed on-line lessons from end-January “has performed a elementary function in cushioning the impression [of the pandemic] on our service and operation,” stated Michael Yu, New Oriental’s govt chairman.
Each New Oriental and TAL, its largest competitor, didn’t reply to questions concerning the impression of tech giants like ByteDance getting into the web training trade.
ByteDance just isn’t the one large Chinese language tech agency eyeing a slice of the web training pie. Corporations equivalent to Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings and Huawei Technologies have additionally been creating their very own e-learning instruments, and when colleges shut because of the pandemic earlier this yr, they stepped ahead to offer free online classes for students of different levels. Alibaba is the South China Morning Put up’s mum or dad firm.
ByteDance has a very intense rivalry with Tencent, with the 2 corporations squaring off in additional areas together with social media, telecommuting and gaming currently.
For instance, Tencent introduced in January that WeChat was testing a short video feature, leveraging its 1.2 billion month-to-month energetic customers to broaden into ByteDance’s residence turf, whereas the latter has additionally been increasing into areas beforehand dominated by Tencent, equivalent to online gaming.
Native information shops have identified that GuaGuaLong English shares some similarities with Zebra AI, an English-learning app developed by Tencent-backed start-up Yuanfudao.
Each apps goal children aged two to eight, characteristic animated characters that function AI instructing assistants, and have comparable pricing plans – month-to-month plans at 289 yuan and annual plans at about 2,600 yuan, in keeping with Chinese language tech information platform 36kr.
Yuanfudao and Baidu-backed Zuoyebang, which additionally has the same AI training product, declined to touch upon rivals.
Analyst Xu stated ByteDance might acquire an edge within the trade by means of its experience in live-streaming, a serious characteristic of its mainland Chinese language model of TikTok, Douyin.
“ByteDance can shortly leverage its current live-streaming features to enter this market and compete,” he stated, including {that a} sense of immersion is essential for studying, and “thus far the most effective on-line resolution to that’s by means of live-streaming.”
Nevertheless he stated that even with live-streaming, college students are nonetheless going through a display screen: “Given the identical situations, live-streamed programs gained’t be nearly as good because the offline ones.”
ByteDance’s current on-line training choices, except for GuaGuaLong, embody English-learning apps Gogokid and Open Language in addition to Qingbei, an internet classroom for Ok-12 college students overlaying a spread of topics.
Regardless of its a number of makes an attempt, nonetheless, none of ByteDance’s on-line training apps have turn out to be market leaders. Its best-performing app, Open Language, ranked round 70th among the many training class on China’s App Retailer, whereas Qingbei got here in at 450th place as of Monday, in keeping with App Annie.
Yu Bin, an impartial web analyst and blogger, stated ByteDance’s mistake was that it put an excessive amount of emphasis on selling the apps and gaining site visitors of their early phases, relatively than specializing in the standard of the programs and providers. On this, the corporate “gained in superficial elements however misplaced within the important elements,” Yu stated.
For instance, ByteDance aggressively promoted Gogokid on Douyin, employed Chinese language A-lister Zhang Ziyi as model ambassador and sponsored two well-known tv reveals to advertise the platform in its early phases.
Gogokid laid off staff in April final yr in keeping with home media outlet China Entrepreneur, though a ByteDance consultant stated this was to optimize employees inside a “regular vary” in the course of the efficiency appraisal interval. One other comparable ByteDance platform, aiKid, additionally failed to realize floor within the trade and has not been up to date since December 2018.
The brand new customers attracted from apps catering to the plenty like Douyin is probably not focused prospects, Yu stated, including that the most important corporations within the on-line training sector every concentrate on sure topics and instructing strategies.
However Zhang, ByteDance’s founder, stated he’s in no hurry for the corporate to realize success within the on-line training area.
“After all [before we achieve success] we must always have a deeper understanding first,” Zhang wrote in his open letter marking the start-up’s eighth anniversary. “Beginning a brand new enterprise is not any straightforward job.”
