Earnings Labs

Sunlands Technology Group (STG)

Q2 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 18, 2021

$3.21

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Sunlands’ Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After prepared remarks by the management team, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today’s conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I’d now like to turn the call over to your host today, Yuhua Ye, Sunlands’ IR Representative. Please go ahead.

Yuhua Ye

Management

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Sunlands' second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. The company's financial and operating results were issued in our press release via newswire services earlier today and are posted online. You can download the earnings press release and sign up for our distribution list by visiting our IR website. Participants on today’s call we have our CEO, Mr. Tongbo Liu and our CFO, Selena Lu Lv. Management will begin with prepared remarks. And in the call, we'll conclude with a Q&A session. Before I hand it over to the management, I'd like to remind you of Sunlands' Safe Harbor statements in relation to today's call. Except for the historical information contained herein, certain of the matters discussed in this conference call are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current trends, estimates and projections, and therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. For more information about the potential risks and uncertainties, please refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I’d now like to turn the call over to our CEO, Tongbo Liu.

Tongbo Liu

Management

Thank you, Yuhua. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Sunlands' second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. We are pleased with our second quarter performance. Our net revenue grew 22.8% year-over-year to RMB629.5 million, with master's degree-oriented programs and professional certification and skills programs achieving a year-over-year increase of 91.7% and 584.6% [ph] respectively. New enrollments remained relatively stable at over 86,000, representing a 4.8% year-over-year increase which was primarily driven by our 168.7% year-over-year increase from professional certification and skills programs. Following a strategic adjustment to optimize our product mix while taking growth and balancing cost and profitability, our gross billings were RMB430.2 million compared with RMB531.5 million for the same period of 2020. Our strategic adjustment and ongoing cost reduction efforts delivered a record net profit of RMB22.1 million compared with net loss of RMB126.1 million in the second quarter of 2020. We experienced increased demand for higher education and professional certification and skills programs during the second quarter of 2021. Employment market is becoming increasingly competitive due to industrial restructuring in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, motivating workers to enhance their career competitiveness through occupational education while working professionals often pursue higher education through our STE or master's degree programs. Many adults also seek to improve their skills and enrich their lives with our professional skills and generate interest courses. With such steady tailwinds, we increased our efforts to enrich our cost offerings and improve the quality of our programs, which helped sustain the growth momentum in master's degree-oriented programs and professional certification and skills programs. Gross billings for master's degree-oriented programs increased by 23.7% year-over-year. This exceptional performance was driven by our successful degree-oriented programs within China as well as our growing cooperation with higher education institutions in other global regions. We continue to provide high-quality…

Selena Lu Lv

Management

Thank you, Tongbo Liu. Hello, everyone. And thank you for attending Sunlands second quarter conference call. We are excited to report solid second quarter’s results, with profit coming in at RMB22.1 million compared with net loss of RMB126.1 million for the same period last year, and with our master's degree and professional skills programs consistently performing well. During the quarter, we took multiple measures to reasonably lower costs and improve operating efficiency, with G&A and sales expenses decreasing 8% and 7.9% year-over-year, respectively. We also continued our efforts to expand course categories as we strive to deliver better learning experiences to our users. Looking ahead, we will persist in cost-efficient marketing and operation optimization. With our existing advantage in the business of occupational education for adults, better cultivated courses and highly efficient management, we believe we are on track to grow further and incrementally enhance profitability. Now, I would like to share our financial results for the second quarter of 2021 in detail. In the second quarter of 2021, net revenues increased by 22.8% to RMB629.5 million from RMB512.5 million in the second quarter of 2020. The increase was mainly driven by year-over-year growth in gross billings since the second half of 2020 through the first quarter of 2021. Cost of revenues decreased by 2.3% to RMB97.3 million in the second quarter of 2021 from RMB99.6 million in the second quarter of 2020. The decrease was primarily due to reduced insurance-related costs incurred for our integrated online education service package purchased by students. Gross profit increased by 28.9% to RMB532.2 million in the second quarter of 2021 from RMB412.9 million in the second quarter of 2020. In the second quarter of 2021, operating expenses were RMB519.6 million, representing a 7.2% decrease from RMB560 million in the second quarter of 2020.…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] : :

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions. This will conclude our question-and-answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Yuhua Ye, IR representative, for any closing remarks.

Yuhua Ye

Management

Once again, thank you everyone for joining today's call. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. Good day and goodnight.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the earnings conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you very much and have a great day.