K12 Online Education Competitive Product Analysis Report

With the development of technology, the development speed of K12 online education has also accelerated, and online education has become the only choice for parents; due to the impact of the epidemic in the first half of this year, the development of online education has been even faster.

1. Purpose of Competitive Product Analysis

1. K12 concept

"K12" is also known as "K-12", the full name is "Kindergarten to 12", which means kindergarten to twelfth grade in the American education system. In China, it usually refers to elementary school to high school.

Compared with traditional offline education, K12's shift to online education breaks through the limitations of time and location, which is conducive to improving the efficiency of teacher resource supply and alleviating family economic and time pressures; improving the operational efficiency of training institutions, and the transparent service process is also conducive to improving the overall environment of the private training industry.

2. Purpose of analysis

Understand the current status of the K12 online education market and the overview of leading course/comprehensive products, and propose iterative ideas.

2. Market Background and Current Situation

1. Market background

The distribution of educational resources in my country has always been very uneven - there are obvious differences in the amount of high-quality educational resources available between the east and the central and western regions, between urban and rural areas, and between wealthy families and middle- and low-income families.

As the country increases its investment in hardware facilities for public primary and secondary schools, the regional imbalance in hardware education resources has been alleviated to a certain extent; but high-quality teacher resources are still extremely scarce, and most of them are concentrated in economically developed first-tier cities. People expect online education to break through spatial and class restrictions.

2. PEST macro analysis

1) Policy level: The country currently encourages development and will increase supervision in the future.

The K12 education industry has a huge market demand that is difficult to meet with government power alone, so the country encourages market forces to enter; especially the emerging online education industry. Policies such as "National Key High-tech Fields" and "National Education Development 13th Five-Year Plan" have expressed clear support for it; but K12 education is also closely related to the majority of minors, so the country is bound to strengthen supervision, and the online market is no exception.

In February 2018, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the General Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce jointly issued the "Notice on Effectively Reducing the Extracurricular Burden of Primary and Secondary School Students and Carrying out Special Governance Actions on Off-campus Training Institutions". A large number of offline education institutions without school operating licenses, excessive teaching content, and potential safety hazards have been closed or rectified. This is the most stringent rectification notice for the K12 offline education market since the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the K12 online education market is temporarily in a state of regulatory vacuum.

In the future, the K12 online education market will most likely be regulated, and certificates such as the "ICP Business License", "Internet Culture Business License", "Information Network Audiovisual Program Transmission License", and "Internet Publishing License" may become necessary entry conditions.

2) Economic level: The overall scale exceeds 700 billion, and K12 online education has achieved high growth for several years.

In 2019, there were one million K12 training institutions in China, with annual turnover exceeding 700 billion yuan and total cash flow exceeding 700 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9%-10%.

In 2019, the overall market size of China's K12 online education was approximately 64.88 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.4%, and the growth rate continued to be at a double-digit level.

With the continuous development of the industry, the penetration rate of K12 education is also increasing. In recent years, technological advances and changes in consumption concepts of Generation Z have accelerated the penetration of K12 education.

In 2019, the penetration rate of K12 online education in China was about 15%. Since 2020, the sudden outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic has made the advantages of online education more prominent: online education has broken through the limitations of time and place, allowing the acquisition of knowledge to have more forms and content. Under the influence of the epidemic, the penetration rate of the K12 online education industry reached its peak in March 2020.

Although K12 online education is still in the stage of consumer popularization in China, as an emerging way to obtain educational information and services, it has long-term and large demand and the in-depth popularization of Internet thinking, and the industry penetration rate has huge room for improvement in the future.

3) Social level: The imbalance of educational resources conflicts with the rigid demand for examinations.

Judging from the current situation, the distribution of educational resources, especially teaching staff, among regions in my country is very uneven. This imbalance directly leads to parents scrambling to send their children to "good schools". After all, students and parents are actually choosing teachers when choosing a school.

However, the various threshold restrictions for good schools undoubtedly discourage most parents, so popularizing educational resources through technological means will become the choice of the vast majority of families.

As long as China remains a "society of academic qualifications", as long as college entrance examination scores can still greatly affect students' life prospects, and as long as admission to high school, junior high school, and even elementary school requires subject examinations, the market demand for extracurricular subject tutoring, especially high-quality educational resources, will not decrease.

4) Technical level: Big data + artificial intelligence + 5G optimize the educational experience.

The development and progress of technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and 5G will continue to enhance the online education user experience and increase industry solutions.

With the application of big data and artificial intelligence technologies in the online education industry, it is possible to select the most suitable questions for a student from a database of tens of millions of questions based on student portraits and platform big data; and to discover the reasons for weak knowledge points based on the student's learning data, and plan a better learning path for the student.

With the advent of 5G networks, the sound and picture quality of online classes will be clearer, the classroom experience will be better, and it will lay a solid foundation for the popularization of online education.

In the future, it may even be possible to apply technologies such as VR to online education to create real-time learning scenarios and implement more solutions.

3. Market Status

There are a large number of K12 online education apps, which can be divided into the four categories shown in the figure above from the perspective of product form; currently, the application market is dominated by learning auxiliary tool apps, followed by comprehensive online school apps, while 1-on-1 tutoring and AI interactive classes are not mainstream at present.

Judging from the layout of different companies, vertically building a platform ecosystem and expanding customer base have become the development trend of leading companies. The competitive landscape of various categories in the K12 online education market has been initially established, and it is very difficult for newcomers to find a suitable market segment positioning.

3. Competitive Product Analysis

1. Competitive product selection

This analysis selects the leading courses/comprehensive products in the K12 education field, namely Zuoyebang, Yuanfudao, and Xueersi Online School.

There are two reasons for choosing the above three competing products:

• From various industry analysis reports, we can see that Xiaochuan Chuhai, Yuanfudao, and Xueersi have basically completed the layout of various tracks in the K12 education field and become the leading companies in this field. The above three products are the course/comprehensive flagship products of these three companies respectively;
• The App Store K12 track application download data can also confirm the market acceptance of the above three products.

By comparing and analyzing the above three competing products, the author can intuitively understand the overview of this type of product.

The data comes from iResearch and AppStore, compiled by the author

2. Product positioning

The data comes from public information, compiled by the author

The positioning of the above three competing products is basically the same, which is to provide all-round tutoring for primary and secondary school students. The core functions are all centered around live courses. Among them, Xueersi Online School, due to its long-term cultivation and accumulation in primary and secondary school education, also provides high-quality recorded courses.

Zuoyebang and Yuanfudao started out as online education companies, and in the early days both accumulated users through their tool apps. Xueersi relied on its offline education reputation and stores to accumulate initial users.

3. Product iteration information

1) Homework Helper version iteration record

The data comes from Qimai Data, compiled by the author

2) Yuanfudao version iteration record

The data comes from Qimai Data, compiled by the author

3) Xueersi Online School version iteration record

The data comes from Qimai Data, compiled by the author

summary:

Commonality 1: Focus on core function construction and experience optimization

All three focus on optimizing basic functions such as live broadcast, classroom testing, and teaching interaction to ensure a good teaching experience.

Commonality 2: Transition from learning tool to tutoring platform

All three started as learning assistance applications and then gradually became platform-based.

Zuoyebang was launched in 2014, and in January 2015, it introduced the function of searching questions by taking photos. In August, it added the function of simultaneous practice, transforming itself into a comprehensive and efficient learning platform. In 2016, it fully upgraded and launched the function of live class.

Yuanfudao launched Yuantiku in 2013, Xiaoyuan Search Question in 2014, Yuanfudao in 2015, Zebra AI Class and Xiaoyuan Oral Arithmetic in 2017, and Zebra Thinking in 2019.

TAL Education Group (Xueersi) launched its high school entrance exam website, composition website and college entrance exam website in 2004-2006, and officially launched Xueersi Online School in 2010. In 2011, it renamed its small-class teaching model as Xueersi Peiyou, and in 2015, it launched its dual-teacher large-class teaching model.

characteristic:

Zuoyebang's development path: In 2018, the 1V1 tutoring section, which had been focused on for 17 years, was taken offline. Later, it shifted its focus to developing into a comprehensive live course platform that integrates learning tools such as photo search, word query, Zhifou community, calculator, etc. Users can meet most of their K12 education needs on one App.

Yuanfudao's development path: Relying on other apps under its umbrella to attract traffic, Yuanfudao focuses on developing a live course platform, and users need to switch apps when using auxiliary learning tools.

Xueersi Online School: It has auxiliary functions such as question-taking, poetry memorization, and learning community. It provides parent classes, 1v1 tutoring, IELTS training and other services on the basis of meeting the needs of K12 subject education. It has obvious advantages in teaching resources.

4. Functional structure analysis

1) Basic function comparison

The core functions of the three products are basically the same, and can meet the basic needs of students to watch live lectures through the App. Among them, Xueersi sets up task reminders for purchased courses to strengthen students' knowledge consolidation and make it easier for parents to check their learning progress.

① In the learning auxiliary tool section, Homework Helper integrates a variety of auxiliary tools. Students do not need to switch applications when they need tools. On the one hand, it improves usability, and on the other hand, it increases user stickiness and reduces the risk of users being diverted from other tool software. This is especially true for the needs related to error books and exercises, which are both pain points and itch points for students who need to improve their scores.

In addition to Yuanfudao, Xueersi and Zuoyebang have also set up learning communities where users can interact with each other, which also helps to increase usage time and improve user stickiness.

② The service sector is mainly an extension of the live courses and has little impact on the overall situation.

③ The operation section is mainly aimed at guiding new users, inducing users to share, and attracting new users through group buying. Basically, all three have similar activities.

④ On the “My” page, Homework Helper has set up a homework record function for checking practice status, and the other functions are roughly the same.

summary:

After a rough comparison of the overall functions, it is found that Zuoyebang has a better grasp of users' pain points and itch points in terms of functions. From the user's perspective, it has laid a solid foundation for retaining users.

5. Information architecture analysis

1) Information architecture of Zuoyebang

① From the perspective of product information architecture, Zuoyebang consists of four sections: homepage, live classes, exercises, and me. Putting exercises on the first-level navigation page shows that Zuoyebang treats the exercise section as a core function, forming a learning closed loop of learning in class - practice consolidation - reviewing wrong questions; it conforms to learning habits, making knowledge points easier to absorb and thus achieving the ultimate goal of improving scores.

② The homepage displays the entrances to various learning assistance tools, highlighting the most frequently used photo search function to enhance its tool attributes and non-paying user stickiness; in addition, recommended courses and subject course recommendations (Chinese - Mathematics - Foreign Language) are arranged in order, with clear sections to meet user experience.

③ The live class page mainly contains course selection and class attendance functions. Its core functions are similar to those of other competing products. However, in addition to course selection consultation and learn about us, other course recommendation buttons are placed on the toolbar below the recommendation banner on the course selection page. From an operational perspective, this should be an additional entry point for course marketing. However, I personally think that these recommendation buttons duplicate the functions of the recommendation banner, which makes it more difficult for users to choose on the one hand, and makes the page that could have been simpler a little more complicated on the other.

2) Yuanfudao Information Architecture

① Yuanfudao consists of three sections: Courses, My Courses, and Me. All functions revolve around the core purpose of classes and cannot meet the needs for learning tools and exercises during the learning process. In addition to classes, students also have the need to do exercises and analyze questions. Students are bound to download apps with related functions, which may cause users to flow to other competing products at this stage.

② Judging from the course selection and my course pages, Yuanfudao has made the interface as simple and clean as possible while meeting the core functions of recommendation + course list, which shows that it has a clear idea of ​​course operation and is more conducive to guiding users to make choices.

3) Information architecture of Xueersi Online School

① Xueersi consists of four sections: Home, Discover, Learn, and Me. The Discover page is a learning interactive community, divided into two sections: Follow and Recommend, and displays information in a waterfall flow.

There are many sections on the discovery page. It is speculated that the purpose of placing the discovery page in the first-level navigation is to increase user stickiness through interaction in the learning community and increase the length of time the App is used. However, to achieve this goal, it requires a greater investment in maintaining the community, including the quality and fun of the content. After all, students use learning apps for a very strong purpose. If the community’s resources can neither improve scores nor are interesting, it is better to look for professional information directly.

As far as I can see, the current content of the Xueersi community does not meet this standard and the comment and interaction data pages are not ideal.

② From the homepage, Xueersi’s homepage includes icons for entrances to various subjects, course recommendations, and a waterfall flow of learning community content. However, the content categories are rather confusing. The subject entrance includes a learning tool entrance and a service recommendation entrance. Course recommendations and community content are mixed together and difficult to distinguish, which makes the user’s course selection logic confusing and reduces ease of use.

③ Similarly, the navigation bar on the subject course list page is messy, with buttons for various categories such as special courses, three classes, lectures, poetry memorization, and 1V1 placed together, which also confuses the user's course selection logic.

summary:

As leaders in the K12 education field, the above three products have relatively mature solutions for the core functions of course selection and class attendance, which is also their core profit point.

In addition, the three apps have different focuses in product design. Zuoyebang seems to want to build a comprehensive learning platform of self-study + practice + course tutoring based on actual learning scenarios; Yuanfudao forms this closed loop through all the company's products, but its own products only focus on course tutoring; Xueersi Sixianglai is also developing towards a large and comprehensive learning platform, but its product logic is not clear enough in my opinion.

6. Product logic analysis

1) Product logic of Zuoyebang

2) Yuanfudao’s product logic

3) Xueersi Product Logic

summary:

The underlying logic of the three products is basically similar. The teams provide relevant services, and users choose the services that suit them.

The difference lies in whose service hits the pain points and retains users.

Putting aside the quality of the courses of the three, from a product perspective, Zuoyebang attracts and retains ordinary users through tool software and test practice + analysis, and its logic of converting users into ordinary paying users through VIP analysis is effective; at the same time, ordinary users may even be directly converted into high-quality paying users who purchase courses.

IV. Conclusion

1. SWOT analysis

2. Iteration direction

1) Optimize community functions to increase interest, interactivity, and motivation

• Increase the output of high-quality content in the community, invite famous teachers to create KOLs, output high-quality and professional content to improve the professionalism of the community;
• Add group check-in activities. People who take the same course can choose to join a study group to take the check-in challenge. The number of people is preferably 3-5. Rewards can be given for successful challenges to increase the fun.
• Add scholarship programs or other incentive activities, and students who show significant improvement after participating in the course can receive scholarships or other rewards.

2) Differentiated customization of learning paths to clarify students’ learning goals

• Increase pre-school tests, determine students' current weaknesses through pre-school test papers, recommend courses and set score-raising goals, clarify learning paths, and enhance learning motivation;
• After completing the course, you will be tested again to affirm your learning achievements and continue to be recommended courses of the corresponding level to consolidate your learning outcomes.

3) Set an example and increase students’ motivation to share

Increase the penetration of mainstream social applications, drive user sharing through competitions, check-ins, and periodic achievement-winning activities, strengthen the self-propagation effect, and increase user enthusiasm.

4) Expand emerging educational content

On the basis of improving the K12 education system, we will explore the potential needs of K12 age group students, develop targeted courses, and broaden the product audience.

5) Combine traditional education model to consolidate market share

In order to cope with the threat from traditional education, advantageous products can be developed offline in the reverse direction and cooperate with offline training institutions. The online platform provides teachers and courses, and the offline institutions provide tutors to consolidate the competitive advantage.

3. Summary

By analyzing the three competing products of Zuoyebang, Yuanfudao, and Xueersi Online School, the author has gained a general understanding of the K12 education industry, a basic understanding of the structure of this type of product, and proposed an iterative direction, thus achieving the purpose of this analysis.

In addition, in addition to the above common iteration directions, the author believes that Zuoyebang has a more obvious advantage over the three competing products: Yuanfudao needs to expand its overall functions and complete the creation of a closed loop of usage scenarios; Xueersi Online School needs to streamline pages, optimize product logic, lower the threshold and improve ease of use.

Author:Amber

Source: Amber