On January 9, after more than a month of postponement, the 2023 National Examination kicked off. This year, the number of applicants for the national examination reached 2.5977 million, which is the largest number of applicants in the past ten years. According to the current recruitment plan, 37,000 people will eventually “go ashore”.
Thousands of troops are rushing to the “end of the universe”, and the public examination education track is also extremely lively.
On the first day of the National Examination, Chalk Technology, a non-academic vocational education platform, rang the golden gong for listing, and Chalk was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming “the first Internet vocational education stock”. The IPO price was 9.9 Hong Kong dollars per share. After the market opened, Chalk’s share price rose all the way. As of the close of the day, the stock price rose 12.12% to 11.1 Hong Kong dollars per share, with a market value of 23.28 billion Hong Kong dollars.
In the past, there was a listed company, Offcn Education, which occupied the first market share, and later, Huatu Education, a veteran public examination training institution, bypassed these two mountains, and Chalk made efforts to develop online channels and suddenly emerged.
In addition to the “old line” public examination training, Chalk has also extended its tentacles to more vocational training tracks.
Chalk stated in the prospectus that the company has expanded its course services beyond the non-academic vocational education and training market to further expand its user base and take advantage of cross-selling opportunities. At the same time, Chalk intends to develop vocational skills training courses with high demand and great growth potential, such as online IT training and offline cooking courses.
The listing means that Chalk will find more financing opportunities in the secondary market, but vocational education is already a red ocean, and it also brings new challenges to Chalk if it wants to seize food from the tiger’s mouth.
On January 9, the curtain of the 2023 National Examination was raised. At this point in time, Chalk successfully landed on the Hong Kong stock market.
In recent years, the public examination market has been extremely hot, and the number of applicants has increased year by year. In the process of trying to “go ashore”, public examination education institutions are almost a must for candidates.
According to the Frost & Sullivan report, the market size of China’s vocational education and training industry in terms of revenue will increase from RMB 516.7 billion in 2016 to RMB 781.1 billion in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.6%. By 2026, it will reach RMB 1,097.9 billion.
The huge demand has given birth to the enthusiasm of the adult vocational training track. In the face of a market worth hundreds of billions, old and new players are trying to get a piece of the action.
In the past 20 years, Offcn Education and Huatu Education have been the two giants in the field of public examinations. The former took the lead in landing on the A-share market in 2019, and the latter has also hit IPOs many times. In 2015, Chalk rose from the online market and became a rising star by lowering the class threshold and customer unit price in the public examination field.
During this period, players such as Cashew Nut Public Examination, Pen Aviation Public Examination, Geran Education, and Zongheng Public Examination have poured into the public examination market. These three are also known as the “big three public examinations” by the outside world.
Among them, Chalk has attracted a large number of users through its good Internet play. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, in terms of paying visits in 2021, Chalk has 9.8 million paying visits.
During the establishment process, chalk won the favor of capital. According to the public round of financing, there are many well-known institutions such as Tencent, IDG, Hillhouse, Matrix Partners, China Renaissance, CMC Capital, and CPE Yuanfeng.
From the perspective of Chalk’s business, public examination training has been the “pillar” of Chalk’s vocational training business revenue in recent years. According to the prospectus, the public examination revenue in 2020 will exceed the sum of income from public institutions, teaching resources, and accounting examinations, accounting for 76.8% of training service revenue.
Daniel J. Brown
Daniel J. Brown (Editor-in-Chief) is a recently retired data analyst who gets a kick out of reading and writing the news. He enjoys good music, great food, and sports, with a slant towards Southern college football, basketball and professional baseball.