Online English training boom promotes market segmentation

On Feb 28, one of the brands 51Talk held a press conference in Beijing and decided to use the "51Talk" brand exclusively to represent its K-12 online English education offerings, officially positioning the company as focused on serving the K-12 market.

"When the revenue of K-12 business has accounted for almost 80 percent of the total, I think it is time that 51Talk should upgrade itself. The expansion of the K-12 education business truly reflects the changing of the online educational market, so all we do is to adapt to the changing market demand," said Huang Jiajia, founder and CEO of 51Talk.

"From an English training provider targeted at adult users to an online educational company that focuses more on K-12 business, 51Talk has undergone the biggest transformation since it was born, and I am confident that our team made the right choice," added Huang.

Meanwhile, unlike many English training institutes that invite foreign teachers from European and American countries to teach children, 51Talk has blazed a new trail in recruiting Filipinos. In 2017, the company trained more than 6,000 teachers in over 20 cities across the Philippines.

"It goes without saying that language environment means much to children's English learning. But many may ignore that the frequency of speaking also matters. The more times children speak English with others, the better the English fluency. After all, practice makes perfect," said Dai Yun, Academic Vice President of 51Talk.

"It is a true fact the labor cost in the Philippines is much lower than that in Western developed countries. Therefore, the high cost performance of the courses is appealing to many families. Also, 51Talk maintains a strict recruiting process. From initial audition to final appointment, only 3 percent of candidates work as online teachers."

"In addition, children from China and teachers from the Philippines do not have to worry about the 'time difference' problem, and they can do the online courses more frequently and efficiently," he believed.

Targeted at young English learners, 51Talk also collaborates with the hit movie Monster Hunt by launching a series of animations during the Spring Festival period. In the short video, Huba, a cute monster from the film, has English dialogues with 51Talk's own mascot Max.

"The language learning points are contained in the short video and I always like to combine linguistic learning with entertaining activities to create the best learning experience possible. In the future, our team also plans to bring more advanced educational resources to China's second- and third-tier cities," said Zhang Liming, co-founder and Chief Operation Officer of 51Talk.