New Oriental Education reports Q2 EPS 29c, consensus 29c

Reports Q2 revenue $869.6M, consensus $814.07M. The total number of schools and learning centers was 843 as of November 30, 2023, an increase of 50 and 135 compared to 793 as of August 31, 2023 and 708 as of November 30, 2022, respectively. The total number of schools was 83 as of November 30, 2023. Michael Yu, New Oriental’s Executive Chairman, commented, “We are pleased to see results surpassed our expectations for the second quarter, with a 36.3% growth in revenue and improvement in operating margin year over year. Our overseas test preparation and overseas study consulting businesses maintained strong momentum with approximately 46.5% and 31.7% growth year over year, respectively. In addition, the domestic test preparation business targeting adults and university students recorded a growth of approximately 42.7% year over year. Moreover, it is also encouraging that our new educational business initiatives have sustained promising results in this fiscal quarter, with 68.3% revenue growth year over year. Among these new educational business initiatives, our non-academic tutoring courses were offered in around 60 cities, attracting approximately 786,000 student enrollments in this fiscal quarter; simultaneously, our intelligent learning system and devices were adopted in around 60 cities, with approximately 181,000 active paid users in this fiscal quarter. The strong growth was fueled by increased student satisfaction, as a result of our continued improvement in customer retention rate and endless efforts in enhancing the quality of our product offerings and services. We have confidence in our ability and capability to seize lucrative market opportunities by leveraging our brand advantage and rich educational resources.”