New Oriental Education & Techno (NYSE:EDU)

BEIJING, Feb. 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced preliminary estimated revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 ending February 29, 2020.

New Oriental currently expects its preliminary estimated total net revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 to be in the range of US$902.1 million and US$933.2 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 13% to 17%, respectively. Without giving effect to the impact of potential change in exchange rate between Renminbi and the U.S. Dollar, the estimated year-over-year revenue growth rate in the Company's functional currency Renminbi is expected to be in the range of 16% to 20% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. The Company previously announced its outlook which estimated the total net revenues for the third quarter to be in the range of US$983.0 million and US$1,006.4 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 23% to 26%. The weaker-than-expected revenues are mainly due to the impact of the outbreak of coronavirus in China, which was significantly offset by measures taken by the Company to effectively move its offline classes to small size online live broadcasting classes through the self-developed OMO (online merging offline) system during the quarter. 

The above preliminary estimated revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 ending February 29, 2020 reflect New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to uncertainty and change.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Agora.io, the leading voice, video and live interactive streaming platform, teamed up with New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.(NYSE: EDU), one of the largest providers of private educational services in the world and a leader in the Chinese market, to launch the "New Oriental Cloud Classroom," a remote, interactive classroom experience to aid in the displacement of students and teachers during the coronavirus outbreak. Bringing more than one million students into virtual classrooms in just seven days' time, this joint project is the latest enterprise application of Agora's real-time engagement platform.

"Without the efforts of the New Oriental Live Broadcasting team and Agora.io, the quick launch of the platform would have not been possible," said Yu Minhong, Chairman of the New Oriental Education Technology Group. "Over seven days, the teams collaborated closely to ensure that we could deliver a solution to help support the more than one million students and teachers during this national crisis."  

The cloud-based classrooms provide a much needed alternative to traditional physical classrooms, and they touted powerful, interactive features:

A student is able to address the classroom individually using voice or video capabilities.
Teachers can "take a student aside" and have a private, one-on-one session.
Students can break away from the larger classroom and work in smaller groups powered by video conferencing

"In the face of the coronavirus epidemic, schools, companies and educational institutions realized there is a clear need for a stable online learning environment for students and teachers," said Tony Zhao, CEO of Agora.io. "We knew we had the technical expertise, technology and experience, and we felt confident we could meet the critical scalability needs very quickly, based on our past work with enterprise-level users. This project was extremely important to us because it is essential to maintain continuity for both students and schools impacted by the Coronavirus outbreak."

Aside from the pressure to provide continuity of education, the two companies needed to build a solution with an understanding that users would be challenged with highly congested networks. Any such solution would have to be resilient and highly scalable across the globe. With many institutions turning to online classrooms, and extremely high-traffic data usage during the Chinese Spring Festival holiday, the project needed a platform that could handle the congestion and still perform without fail. Agora's Software-Defined Real-time Network (SD-RTN ™ ), the company's dedicated network designed for low-latency and high-scale, was capable of handling the sudden spike in demand and, more critically, doubling the scale of users nearly overnight.

In recent days, cities like San Francisco have declared a state of emergency due to the fast-growing threat of coronavirus in the U.S. Many business, healthcare, educational, and governmental organizations are looking for reliable telecommute, telemedicine, and teleschooling solutions capable of handling rapid, enterprise-scale deployment.

Solutions like Agora's real-time engagement platform have proven to perform time and again.  

BEIJING, Oct. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first fiscal quarter ended August 31, 2019, which is the first quarter of New Oriental's fiscal year 2020.   

Financial Highlights for the First Fiscal Quarter Ended August 31, 2019

• Total net revenues increased by 24.6% year-over-year to US$1,071.8 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2020.
• Operating income increased by 52.6% year-over-year to US$246.2 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2020.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 69.6% year-over-year to US$209.0 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2020.

• Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses increased by 50.4% year-over-year to approximately 2,609,200 for the first fiscal quarter of 2020.
• The total number of schools and learning centers was 1,261 as of August 31, 2019, an increase of 161 compared to 1,100 as of August 31, 2018, and an increase of 7 compared to 1,254 as of May 31, 2019. The total number of schools was 95 as of August 31, 2019.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Executive Chairman, commented, "We are very pleased to start fiscal 2020 with robust top line growth of 24.6%, or 29.7% if measured in Renminbi, which exceeded the high-end of our expected range. Moreover, we achieved a remarkable year-over-year improvement in operating margin.  The K-12 after-school tutoring business continued to be our key growth driver, and achieved a year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 35%, or 40% if measured in Renminbi. Furthermore, our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business grew by approximately 33%, or 38% if measured in Renminbi, while our POP Kids program achieved a growth of approximately 38%, or 44% if measured in Renminbi."

Chenggang Zhou, New Oriental's Chief Executive Officer, added, "As we continued to implement our well-proven "Optimize the Market" Strategy, we remained committed to carry out capacity expansion in cities where we see potential for rapid growth and strong profitability. During this quarter, we added a net of seven learning centers in existing cities. The total square meters of classroom area by the end of this quarter increased approximately 24% year-over-year, and 3% quarter-over-quarter. Furthermore, in this quarter we once again delivered a highly successful summer promotion campaign, offering low-cost offline trial courses for multiple subjects across most of our existing cities, targeting students before they begin secondary school. We are very encouraged to see that even with a doubled average price compared to last year, total promotion enrollments reached 820,000, an 8% increase year-over-year, accompanied by improved student retention year-over-year. Meanwhile, we also continued to strengthen our online-merge-offline (OMO) standardized classroom teaching system, in addition to launching an innovative interactive courseware for the POP kids program in certain major cities, creating more interactive and high-quality learning experience for our students. We also made further strategic investment into dual-teacher model classes and new initiatives for K-12 tutoring through Koolearn.com, our pure online education platform. With our core dual competencies in both offline and online education services, we are confident to capture the substantial business opportunities in low-tier cities and remote areas moving forward."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "During this quarter, we continued to fine-tune our capacity expansion at a controlled and balanced pace, which supported our delivery of a strong bottom line performance, compounded with year-over-year operating margin expansion. Our non-GAAP operating income increased by 46.8% year-over-year to approximately US$257.2 million, while non-GAAP operating margin rose by 360 basis points to 24.0%, from 20.4% a year ago. We will also sharpen our focus on utilizing facilities and improving operating efficiency. Thus, we are confident in our ability to deliver consistent margin improvement, and create sustainable long-term value to our customers and shareholders."

Financial Results for the First Fiscal Quarter Ended August 31, 2019

Net Revenues

For the first fiscal quarter of 2020, New Oriental reported net revenues of US$1,071.8 million, representing a 24.6% increase year-over-year. Net revenues from educational programs and services for the first fiscal quarter were US$996.5 million, representing a 25.0% increase year-over-year. The growth was mainly driven by increases in student enrollments in K-12 after-school tutoring courses.

Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses in the first fiscal quarter of 2020 increased by 50.4% year-over-year to approximately 2,609,200. The higher-than-normal increase in the number of student enrollments is primarily due to the division of the autumn semester into two parts. Under this method, student enrollments in the autumn semester are recorded separately for each part and the student enrollments for each part fall into separate quarters. This practice was adopted in November 2018 to comply with the latest regulatory requirements.

Operating Costs and Expenses

Operating costs and expenses for the quarter were US$825.6 million, representing a 17.9% increase year-over-year. Non-GAAP operating costs and expenses for the quarter, which exclude share-based compensation expenses, were US$814.6 million, representing an 18.7% increase year-over-year

• Cost of revenues increased by 19.8% year-over-year to US$440.2 million, primarily due to increases in teachers' compensation for more teaching hours and higher rental costs for the increased number of schools and learning centers in operation.
• Selling and marketing expenses increased by 1.9% year-over-year to US$101.2 million.
• General and administrative expenses for the quarter increased by 21.6% year-over-year to US$284.2 million. Non-GAAP general and administrative expenses, which exclude share-based compensation expenses, were US$273.5 million, representing a 24.5% increase year-over-year.

Total share-based compensation expenses, which were allocated to related operating costs and expenses, decreased by 20.8% to US$11.0 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2020.

Operating Income and Operating Margin

Operating income was US$246.2 million, representing a 52.6% increase year-over-year. Non-GAAP income from operations for the quarter was US$257.2 million, representing a 46.8% increase year-over-year.

Operating margin for the quarter was 23.0%, compared to 18.8% in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP operating margin, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, for the quarter was 24.0%, compared to 20.4% in the same period of the prior fiscal year.

Net Income and EPS

Net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was US$209.0 million, representing a 69.6% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$1.32 and US$1.31, respectively.

Non-GAAP Net Income and Non-GAAP EPS

Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was US$230.2 million, representing a 25.0% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$1.45 and US$1.44, respectively.

Cash Flow

Net operating cash flow for the first fiscal quarter of 2020 was approximately US$364.6 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter were US$64.3 million, which were primarily attributable to opening of 43 facilities and renovations at existing learning centers.

Balance Sheet

As of August 31, 2019, New Oriental had cash and cash equivalents of US$973.2 million, as compared to US$1,414.2 million as of May 31, 2019. In addition, the Company had US$351.6 million in term deposits, US$2,010.7 million in short-term investment as of August 31, 2019.

New Oriental's deferred revenue balance, which is cash collected from registered students for courses and recognized proportionally as revenue as the courses are delivered, at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2020 was US$1,330.7 million, an increase of 16.0% as compared to US$1,146.7 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2019. The lower-than usual-increase was due to the change of tuition fees collection schedule for K-12 after-school tutoring courses, in compliance with the latest regulatory requirements. This change was implemented during the second quarter of fiscal year 2019.

New Accounting Standard

The Company adopted the new lease accounting standard (ASC 842) on June 1, 2019, using the modified retrospective transition method resulting in the recording of operating lease right-of-use assets of US$1,224.5 million and operating lease liabilities of US$1,212.6 million on the balance sheet. Prior period amounts have not been adjusted and continue to be reported in accordance with the previous accounting guidance. The adoption of the new guidance did not have a material effect on the consolidated statements of operations.

Outlook for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2020

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2020 (September 1, 2019 to November 30, 2019) to be in the range of US$753.6 million to US$771.0 million, representing a year-over-year growth in the range of 26% to 29%.

The projected growth rate of revenue in our functional currency Renminbi is expected to be in the range of 30% to 33% for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2020. The exchange rate used to calculate expected revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2020 is 7.11. The historical exchange rate used to calculate revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 was 6.90.

Second Quarter 2019 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 27.8% year-over-year to US$597.1 million for the second fiscal quarter of 2019.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses and loss from fair value change of long-term investments, for the quarter was US$23.0 million, representing a 69.2% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$0.14 and US$0.14, respectively.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Executive Chairman, commented, "We are pleased to see our overall business continue its strong momentum in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 and achieve a top line growth of 27.8%, or 33.6% if computed in Renminbi. This was driven largely by our key business unit, K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring, which recorded a remarkable year-over-year revenue growth of approximately 38%, or 44% if computed in Renminbi, reflecting a combination of a solid high-quality product portfolio and a sustained market demand. Furthermore, our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business grew by approximately 39%, or 46% if computed in Renminbi, and the POP Kids program achieved a growth of approximately 35%, or 41% if computed in Renminbi."

Chenggang Zhou, New Oriental's Chief Executive Officer, added, "As we execute our well-proven 'Optimize the Market' strategy', we continued to progress our capacity expansion plan in this quarter. We added a net of 24 learning centers in existing cities, and opened a new training school in the city of Jinhua. Altogether, this increased the total square meters of classroom area by approximately 30% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter by the end of this quarter. At the same time, we continued to refine and leverage our online and offline integrated standardized teaching system for the K-12 business across the nation, and particularly in some of the larger cities for our overseas test preparation business. Starting from the fiscal year 2019, we initiated a pilot program to standardize teaching content and methodology in the U-Can middle and high school tutoring business, which has started to bear fruit as we achieved a remarkable increase of customer retention. As we develop best practices gradually, we will begin to roll out the pilot program in our online and offline K-12 tutoring business to further improve teaching quality. We believe this will in turn boost our competitive advantages as we offer the best learning experience to our students. Moreover, we continued to make strategic investments in our dual-teacher model classes and new initiatives for K-12 tutoring on our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, which is expected to see increasing demand in cities of lower tiers and in remote areas."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "In this quarter we continued to see a healthy ramping up of the new facilities we built in the previous fiscal year, which is highly encouraging. Our Non-GAAP operating margin and the utilization rate in the offline language training and test preparation business remained flattish year-over-year in the second quarter. Going forward, we will remain focused on improving our operational efficiency and ensuring consistently-high quality of education across all business lines, through a standardized, modular and systematic approach. We believe that, altogether, these will enable us to leverage our existing capability to capture growth opportunities and generate sustainable long-term value for our customers and shareholders."

Outlook for Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2019

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the third quarter of fiscal year 2019 (December 1, 2018 to February 28, 2019) to be in the range of US$769.9 million to US$793.2 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 25% to 28%.

The projected growth rate of revenue in Renminbi is expected to be in the range of 32% to 36% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2019.

BEIJING, July 18, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced that its subsidiary, Koolearn Technology Holding Limited ("Koolearn"), a leading provider of online education service in China, has submitted an application for listing its ordinary shares on the main board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited.

The listing application is subject to review and approval of authorities. Shareholders and potential investors in New Oriental should be aware that there is no assurance as to whether and when Kooleran's listing will take place.

The securities of Koolearn have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the Securities Act or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws.

This press release is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities, in the United States or elsewhere, and it is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Declaration of Special Cash Dividend

New Oriental's board of directors has declared a special cash dividend in the amount of US$0.45 per ADS/common share. The cash dividend will be paid on October 6, 2017 to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 6, 2017. The ex-dividend date will be September 1, 2017. The aggregate amount of cash dividends to be paid is approximately US$70.0 million, which will be funded by surplus cash on the Company's balance sheet.

Fourth Quarter 2017 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 23.2% year-over-year to US$486.4 million for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2017.
• Non-GAAP net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental - basic and diluted was 0.41 vs. last years $0.29.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Executive Chairman, commented, "We are pleased to close fiscal year 2017 with a set of solid financial results. In the fourth quarter, we recorded a top line growth of 23.2%, or 30.5% if computed in Renminbi. Student enrollments were up approximately 37% during this quarter, which was driven by the continued momentum of our K-12 after-school tutoring business with enrollment growth of approximately 51% year-over-year. For the full fiscal year, net revenues grew by 21.7%, or 29.1% if computed in Renminbi, with operating income up by 31.8% and net income up by 22%. K-12 after-school tutoring business, our key revenue driver, achieved approximately 44.2% increase in revenue if computed in Renminbi in fiscal year 2017, contributing 55% of total revenues. In particular, our customer retention rate and acquisition efficiency have consistently improved through our online and offline (O2O) integrated education system, which includes U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system and revamped POP Kids program. If computed in Renminbi, our POP Kids program achieved revenue growth of over 55% and enrollment growth of 49% for the fiscal year 2017. Meanwhile, our U-Can business recorded revenue growth of approximately 40% and enrollment growth of 45% for the fiscal year."

Chenggang Zhou, New Oriental's Chief Executive Officer, added, "During the fiscal year, we continue to focus firmly on executing our "Optimize the Market" strategy. In order to maintain a healthy balance between top line and bottom line growth, we moderately accelerated our capacity expansion in some cities with strong growing momentum supported by efficient operations in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017. During the quarter, we added a net of 47 learning centers in around 30 existing cities, opened two new schools and a new learning center in the city of Zhangzhou and Nanyang, and rolled out two dual-teacher model schools in the city of Anyang and Handan. For fiscal year 2017, we opened a total of four new schools, three new learning centers and six dual-teacher model schools in ten new cities and added a net of 93 learning centers and one kindergarten in the existing cities. Furthermore, we achieved impactful progress in building our O2O integrated education ecosystem. The O2O system for the K-12 business became a major driver of our accelerated revenue and enrollment growth in fiscal year 2017. We are in the process of launching the O2O standardized teaching system for our overseas test preparation business, such as IELTS, TOEFL and SAT programs, in some of the large cities in China. Lastly, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of approximately 31%, or 39% if computed in Renminbi for the whole fiscal year, with registered users up by over 29% and paid users up by approximately 56%."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "The encouraging financial performance of this fiscal year was supported by our continued efforts in improving utilization of facilities and enhancing cost control. For fiscal year 2017, operating margin increased 120 basis points. Moving forward into fiscal year 2018, we will continue to execute the "Optimize the Market" strategy to maintain strong growth momentum. In particular, we aim to enter into two to four new cities and add approximately 10-15% new teaching facilitates mainly for our K-12 after-school tutoring business in existing cities. In addition, we will continue to expand our businesses into remote areas in China by rolling out our dual-teacher model schools. We are confident in building sustainable long-term value for our customers and shareholders."

Outlook for First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2018

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018 (June 1, 2017 to August 31, 2017) to be in the range of US$626.5 million to US$647.3 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 17% to 21%.

If not taking into consideration the impact of potential change in exchange rate between Renminbi and the U.S. Dollar, the projected revenue growth rate is expected to be in the range of 20% to 24% for the first quarter of fiscal year 2018.

Second Quarter 2017 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 22.7% year-over-year to US$341.2 million.
• Non-GAAP net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental - diluted was $0.08 vs. last years $0.07.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Executive Chairman, commented, "We are very pleased with our better than anticipated results for the second quarter. We are experiencing increased student satisfaction as we bring together the best learning experiences to help students achieve more, which in turn boosts retention rate and new student enrollment and also contributes to strengthening our brand reputation. This fueled a strong growth of the second quarter top line metrics -- a top line growth of 22.7% or 30.2% if considering in our functional currency Renminbi. This was driven largely by a combination of a broad product portfolio, solid market demand, and effective operation at the sales level. It is also encouraging to see a strong deferred revenue balance of US$764.7 million at the end of the second quarter, up approximately 30.4% year-over-year. The key driver of this was student enrollments which were up by 56% in the quarter. Our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business continued its strong momentum, with revenue up approximately 45% and enrollment up approximately 78% year-over-year. Further, our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business grew approximately 43% and the POP Kids program achieved a growth of approximately 49% year-over-year."

Chenggang Zhou, New Oriental's Chief Executive Officer, added, "As part of the execution of our well-proven 'Optimize the Market' strategy, we made great progress across the board in building out our successful diversified business model during the second quarter. We added a net of 15 learning centers in existing cities, opened a new school and a new learning center in the city of Yantai, and piloted a dual-teacher model school in the city of Tai'an, aiming to bring our expertise to more remote areas in China. All together this added a total of approximately 30,000 square meters of classroom area, representing about 3% capacity expansion. On the other hand, we continued to roll out the well-proven O2O integrated education system, including the new POP Kids program and U-Can Visible Progress System in all existing cities. We also continued to test the new O2O system for overseas test preparation business, including IELTS, TOEFL and SAT programs, in seven large cities in China. In addition, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of 33% year-over-year, with an 11% increase in registered users and a 33% increase in paid users."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Based on very strong top line performance coupled with strong execution and financial discipline, we recorded operating income of US$0.2 million for the quarter compared to a loss of US$10.4 million in the same period of last year. Operating margin increased 380 basis points based on a dramatic improvement in operational efficiency, improved utilization of facilities, and effective cost control within the organization. The strong bottom line performance further proved the effectiveness of our 'Optimize the Market' strategy and reinforced our confidence in the ability to build long-term value for our customers and shareholders."

Outlook for Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2017

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the third quarter of fiscal year 2017 (December 1, 2016 to February 28, 2017) to be in the range of US$408.7 million to US$421.8 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 18% to 22%.

The projected growth rate of revenue in our functional currency Renminbi is expected to be in the range of 25% to 29% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.

This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

EDU ($42.00) issued a response to the Reuters’ report published last Friday, which claimed EDU was helping its students cheat on tests and falsifying their college applications. In the response, EDU stated that:

“...All of the Company's business operations, including those carried out by NOVO, are governed by robust policies and the Company has designed procedures to guard against any unendorsed behavior by employees. The Company does not condone the kinds of behavior described in the media reports, and has in the past enforced disciplinary actions against those employees who breached the Company's policies and procedures.

In the fiscal year ended May 31, 2016 and the first fiscal quarter ended August 31, 2016, the NOVO division accounted for 8% and 6% of the Company's total revenue, respectively, and even smaller percentages of its gross profit. Despite the fact that the NOVO division accounts for an insignificant part of the Company's business, New Oriental will continue to execute on and enforce its robust policies and procedures designed to deter and penalize inappropriate employee conduct in an effort to promote highest standards of corporate governance and business conduct throughout the entire organization.”

Early this morning, a Barron’s article cited an analyst from Credit Suisse, Zoe Zhao, who maintained his target price of $60. His argument was:

“AIRC is not a licence issuer but an independent NGO verifying overseas consulting service providers. Business goes on as usual without such qualification, as customers are barely aware of the certificate. Fraud is too serious of a statement, in our view. EDU responded by saying no fraudulent activity is tolerated and it has sent two non-compliant staff to police earlier this year.

Some investors are concerned that overseas test prep (30% of revenue) could be affected as well. Our view is no. Overseas test prep is all objective and standardised with no tricks. While EDU has been tapping cross-selling opportunities between overseas test prep and consulting, the two are separately run with different natures: test prep’s enrolment (300k+) is 10x larger than consulting (30k); yet ASP is much higher for consulting (~US$3-4k/student) than for test prep (US$1.2k/course).

EDU used to be burnt by MuddyWater’s short-selling report; so “fraud” is a big statement that triggered a fire sale. We have not yet found hard evidence regarding fraud.

Bribery is also an overstatement, in our view. None of the schools gave any exception to students attending the enrolment talk in China, according to Reuters.”

We will continue to follow the story.

BEIJING, Dec. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today responded to recent media reports referencing its small overseas study consulting division, New Oriental Vision Overseas Consultancy Co. (NOVO), as New Oriental believes these reports could mislead readers about NOVO's legitimate business activities and harm the reputation of New Oriental and NOVO.

New Oriental has been dedicated to promoting access to positive education opportunities since its founding in 1993. NOVO has been playing an important role in helping bridge the gap between Chinese and Western cultures and this has led to progress in internationalizing China's best young talent as well as fostering education-based global collaboration and partnership in various foreign markets.

New Oriental prides itself on its longstanding commitment to education and the high standards it has for itself as well as the students it assists with its programs. All of the Company's business operations, including those carried out by NOVO, are governed by robust policies and the Company has designed procedures to guard against any unendorsed behavior by employees. The Company does not condone the kinds of behavior described in the media reports, and has in the past enforced disciplinary actions against those employees who breached the Company's policies and procedures.

In the fiscal year ended May 31, 2016 and the first fiscal quarter ended August 31, 2016, the NOVO division accounted for 8% and 6% of the Company's total revenue, respectively, and even smaller percentages of its gross profit. Despite the fact that the NOVO division accounts for an insignificant part of the Company's business, New Oriental will continue to execute on and enforce its robust policies and procedures designed to deter and penalize inappropriate employee conduct in an effort to promote highest standards of corporate governance and business conduct throughout the entire organization.

First Quarter 2017 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 16.5% year-over-year to US$534.1 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2017.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was US$141.1 million, representing a 9.7% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$0.90 and US$0.89, respectively.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Executive Chairman, commented, "We are very pleased with what was a very strong start to fiscal year 2017. Top line growth for the first quarter was 16.5%, or 23.7% in our functional currency Renminbi, exceeding the high end of our expected range and driven largely by a healthy 31.2% increase in student enrollments. Our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business continued its strong momentum during the quarter, with revenue up approximately 28% and enrollment up approximately 46% year-over-year. Further, our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business grew approximately 23% year-over-year, and the revamped POP Kids program delivered a year-over-year revenue increase of approximately 39%. By all accounts, this is a very solid start to the new fiscal year."

Chenggang Zhou, New Oriental's Chief Executive Officer, added, "We have also maintained focus on executing our now well-proven "Optimize the Market" strategy, which has been guiding us effectively since fiscal year 2015. We are intent on maintaining a healthy balance between top line and bottom line growth, while at the same time investing in building out our online and offline (O2O) integrated education ecosystem. As part of this approach, we opened a new school in the city of Baoding and added a net of 22 learning centers in existing cities, adding a total of approximately 49,000 square meters of classroom area which represents about 4% capacity expansion. To complement this offline expansion, we continued to roll out a sophisticated O2O integrated education system, including new POP Kids program and U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system in all existing cities. We also launched the O2O system for overseas test preparation business, such as IELTS, TOEFL and SAT programs, in seven large cities in China. In addition, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded a revenue growth of 45% year-over-year in the quarter, with an 80% increase in registered users and a 38% increase in paid users."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "We are greatly encouraged by not only the strong revenue performance but also the continued improvement of operational efficiency. During the first quarter, operating income increased by 17.5% year- over-year to approximately US$152.6 million, even while we investing heavily in customer acquisition. In order to rapidly acquire grade 7 student customers before they start the first year of secondary school, we rolled out a large scale promotion this summer, by offering low price experiential courses for multiple subjects in Beijing and Shanghai and math courses in approximately 25 other cities. Despite the promotion costs, the operating margin for the first quarter increased by 30 basis points to 28.6% from 28.3% a year ago. The margin expansion was largely driven by improved utilization of facilities and effective cost control within the organization. We will continue our efforts to enhance efficiency and productivity and believe that will contribute greatly to building long term value for our customers and shareholders."

Outlook for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2017

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2017 (September 1, 2016 to November 31, 2016) to be in the range of US$324.6 million to US$335.1 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 17% to 21%.

The projected growth rate of revenue in our functional currency Renminbi is expected to be in the range of 23% to 27% for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017.

This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Fourth Quarter 2016 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 20.1% year-over-year to US$394.9 million for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016.
• Non-GAAP net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental Basic and Diluted was 0.29 vs last years same quarter of 0.26.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to report excellent performance for fiscal 2016, with continued growth on both the top line and bottom line as well as a significant increase in operating income.  For the full fiscal year, net revenues grew by 18.6%, with operating income up 29.5% and student enrollments up 25.8%.  Fourth quarter net revenues increased by 20.1% and operating income grew 61.1%, driven largely by a 32.5% increase in student enrollments. If not including the impact from the depreciation of Renminbi against the U.S. Dollar, net revenue growth rate would be 22.6% for the full fiscal year and 25.7% for the fourth quarter. Our key revenue driver, K-12 after-school tutoring business, achieved approximately 32% gross revenue growth and an over 39% enrollment growth in fiscal 2016 as compared to that in fiscal 2015.  In particular, our revamped POP Kids program and U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system have been successfully rolled out across all 55 existing cities in our nationwide school network and this expansion drove positive performance. Our POP Kids program achieved gross revenue growth of more than 35% and enrollment growth of approximately 46% for the fiscal year 2016.  Meanwhile, our U-Can business recorded gross revenue growth of more than 30% and enrollment growth of approximately 35% for the fiscal year."

Mr. Yu continued, "Our very strong results for fiscal 2016 are essentially a positive manifestation of our ongoing "Optimize the Market" strategy and proof that our strategic growth initiatives are working.  With this strategy guiding us, we have maintained a healthy balance between top line and bottom line growth while investing in building out our online and offline (O2O) integrated education ecosystem.  For fiscal 2016, we opened 6 new schools in new cities and added a net of 18 learning centers in the existing cities, adding a total of approximately 71,000 square meters of classroom area which represents about 7% capacity expansion.  In the fourth fiscal quarter, we opened two new schools in the cities of Yangzhou and Jinzhou.  Furthermore, our investments in building our O2O integrated education ecosystem began to bear fruit.  The O2O system for the K-12 business is the driving force behind the robust revenue growth as it significantly improves customer retention rate and acquisition efficiency.  We also launched the O2O system for our overseas test preparation business, such as IELTS, TOEFL and SAT programs, in some of the large cities in China.  Lastly, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of approximately 29% for the whole fiscal year, with registered users up by over 77% and paid users almost doubling.  In short, the evolution of our integrated education ecosystem is progressing well.  It is helping us gain market share, enhance brand recognition, and make significant improvements in performance."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "It is particularly encouraging to see the consistent margin expansion that occurred during fiscal year 2016.  Despite our heavy investment in building and rolling out our O2O integrated education ecosystem, full year gross margin increased by 60 basis points to 58.4% and operating margin increased by 110 basis points to 13.4%.  We are encouraged by the strong momentum we have as we move into fiscal 2017 and we will continue to maintain and refine our existing strategies to boost both business growth and operational efficiency.  With our constant efforts to drive profitable revenue, control cost and drive utilization improvement, we are confident that we will continue to even further improve performance and continue to build enhanced value for our shareholders."

BEIJING, Feb. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced that an affiliate of Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent," SEHK stock code: 00700), a leading provider of Internet value-added services in China, has agreed to invest RMB320 million (US$50 million) in Beijing New Oriental Xuncheng Network Technology Co., Ltd. ("Xun Cheng"), which operates the Company's online education platform, Koolearn.com. This investment is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2016. After the completion of the Tencent investment, Xun Cheng will remain as a majority controlled affiliate of New Oriental.

New Oriental also announced that Xun Cheng intends to conduct an initial public offering ("IPO") and listing of its common shares on a major stock exchange in China. Xun Cheng's IPO will be subject to capital markets conditions, and its application with the relevant PRC authorities in compliance with applicable laws and regulations and obtaining the requisite regulatory approval. While the number of common shares to be offered and sold in the IPO has yet to be determined, New Oriental plans to continue to control and consolidate Xun Cheng after Xun Cheng's IPO.

This press release is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any securities, in the United States or elsewhere, and it is not intended to, and does not, constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Second  Quarter 2015 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 17.7% year-over-year to US$278.1 million for the second fiscal quarter of 2016.
• Basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$0.04 and US$0.04, respectively.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to see continued momentum in our overall business in the second quarter, with a 17.7% revenue growth, exceeding the high end of our expectation. It is also encouraging to see a strong deferred revenue balance of US$586.5 million at the end of the second quarter, up over 33% year-over-year. The key driver of this was our total student enrollments, which were up by 35% in the quarter. Supported by the proactive roll out of the new POP Kids program and U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system, our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business achieved more than 33% year-over-year gross revenue growth. In particular, our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business grew over 35% year-over-year, and the POP Kids program grew approximately 30% year-over-year, continuing to build on the excellent performance since its launch in September 2014."

Mr. Yu continued, "As we continued to move forward with our "Optimize the Market" strategy, we opened one new school in Weifang, an emerging and populous city in eastern China. On the other hand, we closed a net of two learning centers and expanded some existing ones, adding a total of approximately 14,000 square meters of classroom area. In the approaching winter and spring quarters, we will continue to improve the utilization rate of facilities at our existing schools and learning centers and add some capacity targeting those cities with promising growth potential, so as to meet the seasonally higher market demand for our K-12 business. Furthermore, our investment in O2O Two-way Interactive Education System in our key business lines has started to bear fruits. The new O2O education system for our K-12 after-school tutoring business contributed to our revenue growth by improving customer retention rate and bringing in new customers. With these encouraging results, we will continue to invest in building out our O2O education system for overseas and domestic test preparation businesses for the rest of the year. Also, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of over 19% year-over-year in the second quarter, with registered users up by over 192% and paid users up by over 215%.

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "While we continued to invest heavily in our O2O integrated education ecosystem, we managed to improve our margin and cost efficiencies during the quarter, as evidenced by the increase in the operating margin. Looking into the second half of 2016, we will maintain our focus on cost control and improving operational efficiency. We will also continue to expand the reach of our advanced products and services across all of our business lines in China. By doing so we will be able to deliver sustainable long-term growth for our shareholders."

Outlook for Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2016

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 (December 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016) to be in the range of US$328.0 million to US$339.5 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 14% to 18%.

If not including the impact from the recent depreciation of Renminbi against the U.S. Dollar, the projected revenue growth rate is expected to be in the range of 20% to 24% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016.

First Quarter 2016 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 16.4% year-over-year to US$458.5 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2016.
• Non-GAAP net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental - diluted was $0.84 vs last years same quarter $0.73

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are pleased to start fiscal 2016 with a robust top line growth of 16.4%, which exceeded the high end of our expected range. On top of this, we also experienced strong recovery of operating income which grew 17.5% and an increase in profit of 14.4% year-over-year. Also, we continued to experience burgeoning demand for New Oriental's exceptional educational programs and service offerings despite the softening macroeconomic environment in China. Our company never ceases to improve and innovate our products and services in order to drive demand on all possible fronts. Further, it is important to note that we have found in other periods of economic downturn that education spending proves to be more resilient than most of the other consumer discretionary categories in China and this is being proven once again in the current environment. Turning to the specifics, in the first quarter, our solid revenue growth was mainly driven by total student enrollments, which were up 13.8% in the quarter. We were also encouraged by a strong increase in deferred revenue, which stood at US$511.7 million at the end of the first quarter, up over 28% year-over-year. Our key revenue driver, K-12 after-school tutoring business, had robust gross revenue growth of approximately 29% year-over-year and enrollment growth of over 23%. In particular, our revamped POP Kids program has achieved revenue growth of over 30% year-over-year for the first time since its launch in September 2014. Meanwhile, our U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system was successfully rolled out across all cities in New Oriental's nationwide school network and the U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded gross revenue growth of more than 28% year-over-year and enrollment growth of approximately 24%."

Mr. Yu continued, "In addition, as we kicked off the new fiscal year, further progress was made in executing the "Optimize the Market" strategy. We opened two new schools in the cities of Wenzhou and Quanzhou. We closed a net of 5 learning centers while expanded some existing learning centers by adding a total of approximately 11,000 square meters of additional classroom area. For the rest of fiscal 2016, we will remain fully committed to our expansion plan in existing cities and continue to look for profitable opportunities in new cities. The rollout of the online and offline integration in our key business lines, including U-Can Visible Progress Teaching system and POP Kids program, has been successful and has enabled us to capture extra growth. We also continued the investment in building our O2O integrated education ecosystem and this is progressing well. Furthermore, our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of approximately 32% year-over-year, with paid users up by more than 150%."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "While our overall top line performance rebounded this quarter, we also continued to focus on cost control across the organization. This meant that despite the heavy investment in our O2O integrated ecosystem, operating margin increased by 20 basis points from a year ago to 28.3%, which was mainly driven by the improved utilization of facilities as well as operational efficiency. Going forward, we will continue to work to deliver sustainable profitability as well as long-term shareholder value."

Fourth Quarter 2015 Financial Results

Total net revenues increased by 14.4% year-over-year to US$328.8 million for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2015. Total net revenues would have increased 16.2% if including US$5.3 million of temporarily deferred revenue resulting from the Company's customer loyalty programs[1].

• Net income attributable to New Oriental decreased by 17.9% year-over-year to US$35.2 million for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2015.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to conclude the final quarter of fiscal 2015 with a continued and steady recovery in top line growth as well as student enrollments. Fourth quarter revenue growth was a healthy 14.4% year-over-year and would have been as high as 16.2% if including temporarily deferred revenue resulting from our customer loyalty programs launched earlier in the year. Student enrollments were up almost 35% in the quarter, driven by the continued momentum of our K-12 after-school tutoring business which had year-over-year enrollment growth of approximately 57%. This key business segment recorded gross revenue growth of approximately 21% in the quarter, contributing nearly half of the total revenues. Additionally, U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded gross revenue growth of approximately 27%. Moreover, our newly revamped POP Kids program has been gaining significant momentum, with enrollments advancing 48% year-over-year and gross revenue growing approximately 6% in the quarter. The POP Kids program is in most of our existing cities and given very positive market feedback. We expect this new exciting program to achieve continued strong performance."

Mr. Yu continued, "While we faced both challenges and opportunities in fiscal 2015, it was a fruitful year overall and we made a great deal of progress in driving forward our current growth strategy. Most importantly, we launched our "Optimize the Market" strategy which is allowing us to focus on maintaining a balance between top line and bottom line growth as well as building out our online and offline integrated education ecosystem. During the year, we added a net of 21 learning centers and expanded certain existing learning centers by adding a total of approximately 11,000 square meters of additional classroom area. Furthermore, we made solid progress in improving the core of our online system, the O2O integration. Our "U-Can Visible Progress Teaching" system was launched in the second quarter and is now being used in more than 40 cities. Despite the negative impact from the uncertainty around the Gaokao reform at the beginning of fiscal 2015, our U-Can program achieved more than 22% revenue growth for the year. We have also seen encouraging results from investments in our online platform and educational products. Our pure online education platform, Koolearn.com, recorded revenue growth of approximately 40%, with registered users up by more than 110% and paid users up by over 60%. The evolution of our integrated ecosystem is going well."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "As we move forward into fiscal 2016, we will continue to implement the "Optimize the Market" strategy in order to further build on the improved foundation we have put in place. In particular, we aim to enter 3 to 4 new cities and open 30 to 40 new learning centers for our K-12 after-school tutoring business in existing cities that are driving both revenue growth and margin expansion. At the same time, we will continue to invest in the build out of our online and offline integrated education ecosystem, leveraging our new and more advanced product offerings and services and expanding the reach of our O2O products into all our key business lines. Lastly, we will continue to focus on enforcing cost control and improving operational efficiency across the organization. We believe that all of these efforts will bring higher growth and sustainable profitability for the Company as well as enhanced value for our shareholders over the long term."

Outlook for First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2016

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016 (June 1, 2015 to August 31, 2015) to be in the range of US$441.3 million to US$457.0 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 12% to 16%.

If not including the deduction of approximately US$5.3 million revenue that will be deferred resulting from the Company's customer loyalty programs, the projected revenue growth rate is expected to be in the range of 13% to 17% for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016.

This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Declaration of Special Cash Dividend

New Oriental's board of directors has declared a special cash dividend in the amount of US$0.4 per ADS/common share. The cash dividend will be paid on October 7, 2015 to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 4, 2015. The ex-dividend date will be October 5, 2015. The aggregate amount of cash dividends to be paid is approximately US$63 million, which will be funded by surplus cash on the Company's balance sheet.

Third Quarter 2015 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 13.1% year-over-year to US$287.7 million for the third fiscal quarter of 2015. Total net revenues would have increased 14.6% if including US$3.7 million of temporarily deferred revenue resulting from the Company's new customer loyalty programs[1].
• Non-GAAP net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental Diluted was 0.29 vs. last years same quarter of 0.30.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to report solid results for the third quarter with sustained top-line growth of 13.1%. Revenue growth would have been as high as 14.6% if including temporarily deferred revenue resulting from our customer loyalty programs launched in the second quarter of 2015. Strong momentum continued in our K-12 after-school tutoring business with year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 22% to US$143 million, contributing to almost half of our revenues. Our U-Can middle and high school all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded gross revenue growth of approximately 29%. Of particular importance, since its nationwide roll-out in the second quarter, our revamped POP Kids program has begun a noteworthy turnaround with gross revenue growth of about 7% and enrollment growth of 16%, reversing previous declines. We expect this program's positive performance to accelerate as the new offerings have been well received by both our students and the market. Total enrollments for the third quarter were flat year-over-year but mainly due to the timing of Chinese New Year in 2015. The holiday occurred later this year, delaying enrollments for Spring classes and resulting in a shift to the fourth quarter. In the first six weeks of the fourth quarter there have been a significant 35.8% uplift in enrollments and a 43% increase in cash receipts versus the same period last year. Looking at the aggregated third fiscal quarter and first six weeks of fourth quarter will be most accurate to understand the business trend."

Mr. Yu continued, "During the third quarter we also made encouraging progress in executing our "Optimize the Market" strategy. To further penetrate into the existing markets, we added a net of six learning centers and expanded some existing learning centers by adding a total of over 2,500 square meters of additional classroom area. Further, we made solid progress in building our online and offline integrated education ecosystem. We are rolling out the O2O Two-way Interactive Education System for our K-12 after-school tutoring program in most of our existing cities. Also, our online business continued to expand rapidly as evidenced by revenue growth of approximately 39% in koolearn.com, our pure online education platform, as well as registered users growth of more than 200% and paid users growth of more than 110%."

Stephen Zhihui Yang, New Oriental's Chief Financial Officer, commented, "As mentioned previously, fiscal 2015 is an important investment year. During the third quarter we continued to allocate capital to the development of digitalized educational content and supplementary online education products and services for all business lines, and as a result our operating margin and net margin have been facing short term pressure as expected. However, we are very confident that these efforts will further differentiate New Oriental in a competitive market and it will allow our student customers access to fresh, new online offerings, greater efficiencies and a better overall learning experience. This is essential to our continuous effort to create long-term growth and sustainable profitability for our shareholders."

Outlook for Fourth Quarter of Fiscal Year 2015

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015 (March 1, 2015 to May 31, 2015) to be in the range of US$322.0 million to US$333.5 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 12% to 16%.

If not including the deduction of approximately US$5 million revenue that will be deferred resulting from the Company's customer loyalty programs, the projected revenue growth rate is expected to be in the range of 14% to 18% for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015.

BEIJING, April 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/-- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced a transition in the role of the Company's Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. Stephen Zhihui Yang, the current Vice President of Finance, will be promoted to Chief Financial Officer of the Company, effective April 21, 2015. Mr. Louis T. Hsieh, the current Chief Financial Officer, will remain as the Company's President, overseeing overall corporate strategy and business development, and will continue to serve as a member of the board of directors. The Company expects a smooth transition as Mr. Hsieh and Mr. Yang have worked together at the Company for more than nine years.

Mr. Yang has been with New Oriental since 2006 and has held multiple positions since he joined the Company, including Vice President of Finance, Deputy Director of the President's Office and Senior Financial Manager.  Mr. Yang has 18 years of professional experience in accounting, financial management and corporate financial advisory services in various sectors.  Prior to joining New Oriental, Mr. Yang served as the Financial Director of Beijing Hua De Xin Investment Co., Ltd. and was a Senior Auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Yang received his bachelor degree in economics from Guanghua School of Management of Peking University.

Michael Minhong Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We warmly welcome Stephen as our new Chief Financial Officer.  With his significant breath of experience and in-depth knowledge of New Oriental and China's education services industry, we are confident that Stephen will make important contributions to New Oriental's financial management and overall growth going forward."

"We also would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Louis for his exemplary service as CFO and invaluable contributions to New Oriental, including leading the Company's very successful IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in 2006 and helping to shape and manage our rapidly expanding business in China.  We are delighted that Louis will continue to be a key member of our senior management team, helping guide the Company's evolution and expansion in what is a very competitive market.  Our full management team's focus will be on fostering a culture of continuous improvement, which will help drive sustainable and profitable growth over the long-term."

Separately, New Oriental also announced its results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2015 today.

Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results

BEIJING, December 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced the official launch of a mobile-based application product "uDA" which is jointly developed with Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent", SEHK: 00700), a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services in China. "uDA" is the first application launched by Beijing WeLearn Future Network Technology Co., Ltd., a joint venture established by New Oriental and Tencent in July this year with the aim to develop and market a range of mobile education products.

Leveraging New Oriental's rich resources in terms of content and educational research as well as Tencent's technological expertise and online penetration, "uDA" will help middle school and college students improve their study experience and efficiency through its three-pronged approach, namely Question Scanner, Smart Push Exercises, and Interactive Tutoring.

With the innovative image recognition technology of "uDA", students will be able to scan questions wherever they are and receive answers on their mobile phones as retrieved from New Oriental's nationwide database of study materials. In addition, a question-and-answer service will be provided through the application by New Oriental's strong network of teachers if a scanned question is beyond the database. "uDA" can also push selected exercises to students based on their study progress using behavioral data the Company has been collecting over the years. Furthermore, with students' authorization, "uDA" can initiate a study group on social-networking platforms. This is expected to facilitate students to progress efficiently and to foster an enjoyable learning experience.

"uDA" is now available for download at www.uda100.com and Tencent's Myapp Store and focuses on the College English Test (CET) as well as the English test for Gaokao, China's college entrance exam. The research and development team will continue to optimize the application and targets to roll out services in other subjects in 2015.

Mr. Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are delighted to partner with Tencent on this exciting initiative that brings together China's most respected brand in 'Kindergarten to College' private education and its largest and most successful Internet company. Thanks to our joint efforts with Tencent over the past four months, we have successfully launched the first mobile learning product that will transform how students in China learn English. This will give our students nationwide access to fresh, new online offerings to supplement their offline learning experience. Working together, we believe we can create more best-in-class mobile learning solutions for students in China."

First Quarter 2015 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 1.4% year-over-year to US$394.0 million for the first fiscal quarter of 2015, reflecting a number of previously disclosed headwinds during the start of the fiscal year.
• Net Income Per Share Basic and Diluted was US$0.71 vs. last years same quarter of US$0.82.

Update on Strategic Initiatives and Go-Forward Growth Strategy

During the last five years, New Oriental's "Occupy the Market" and "Harvest the Market" strategies helped the Company grow and perform very well at various stages in the evolution of its business. More specifically, these initiatives allowed for aggressive growth of both revenues and profitability given well-timed strategies and areas of focus. As a result, New Oriental achieved major milestones by the end of the recently concluded fiscal year 2014, a period during which the Company achieved over $1.1 billion in revenue for the first time and record high net income of over $215 million.

Looking to the future, it is clear that in order to optimize market opportunities and achieve sustainable and balanced growth overall, the Company must again recalibrate slightly and take certain focused steps to cultivate new driving forces for its business growth going forward. At the same time, New Oriental's online education initiatives, which aim to establish an online and offline integrated education ecosystem, are off to a great start.

Therefore, starting in fiscal year 2015 the Company will launch its "Optimize the Market" strategy, transitioning to a focus on maintaining a healthy balance between top-line and bottom-line growth as well as meeting the growing demand for online education services in China. The Company will execute new initiatives to develop both the core offline and online businesses in order to reinforce New Oriental's strong market position, gain new market share, drive the top line, and maintain the solid margin expansion that occurred in the last fiscal year.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "The start of the new fiscal year was challenging as expected and previously communicated to the market. Our lower-than-expected revenue growth of 1.4% year-over-year was mainly due to several challenges in the first fiscal quarter of 2015. First, our English summer camp and dorm tutoring classes for middle and high school students in the first fiscal quarter decreased by approximately 30% year-over-year. In addition, our Adult Comprehensive English enrollments decreased 31% year-over-year. This was mainly due to the uncertainty about the implementation of the new policies released earlier this year relating to the English test for Gaokao (China's college entrance exam). The new Gaokao guideline was formally announced by the government just last month, which provided some clarity on how the reform will be carried out. From the new Gaokao guidelines, we see many opportunities we are poised to capture, and we believe that it will boost the demand for our business and benefit New Oriental in the long-term. Lastly, we are still in the midst of revamping our POP kids program and experienced 9% revenue decrease year-over-year. As our new POP Kids program will be rolled out across our school network in the months ahead we hope to reverse recent declines and return to sustained growth in this important business segment in the second fiscal quarter of 2015."

Mr. Yu continued, "Starting in fiscal year 2015, we have decided to shift from our 'Harvest the Market' strategy to an 'Optimize the Market' strategy that will allow us to focus equally on driving both top-line and bottom-line growth. As a start, in the first fiscal quarter, we increased our penetration in existing markets by adding capacity in cities where we are experiencing rapid growth and strong profitability. We added a net of eight learning centers and expanded some existing learning centers by adding a total of 3,800 square meters of additional classroom area. In addition, we will continue to make aggressive efforts to build our online and offline integrated education ecosystem. As the clear market leader in K-College online education market in China we were pleased to see a 180% increase in online users to over 410,500 and a 51% increase in paid online enrollments to over 50,400 in the first quarter. We now have approximately 9.6 million cumulative online registered users, multiples more than any other online education company in China. We believe that with these comprehensive approaches, supported also by our strong business fundamentals, we will continue to enhance our clear leadership position in China's education market."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Although we had a disappointing first fiscal quarter for the reasons stated previously, we are encouraged by a nice rebound in late July and August as evidenced by our deferred revenue balance (which is cash collected from registered students for courses and recognized proportionally as revenue as the instructions are delivered) at the end of the first fiscal quarter of US$398.9 million, an increase of 23.2% as compared to US$323.7 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2014."

Outlook for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2015

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2015 (September 1, 2014, to November 30, 2014) to be in the range of US$235.4 million to US$243.7 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 13% to 17%.

BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced that it has been advised by the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") that the investigation by the SEC as to the Company has been completed and that the staff does not intend to recommend any enforcement action by the SEC. The Company had initially reported the existence of this investigation in July 2012. 

Mr. Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "I am pleased to announce that the SEC has concluded its investigation. We are gratified to share the positive news with our investors that this matter is now behind us. We will keep focusing on our business and look forward to delivering long-term value to our shareholders."

Fourth Quarter 2014 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 20.0% year-over-year to US$287.5 million from US$239.6 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.30 and US$0.30 vs. last years same fiscal quarter of US$0.23.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to report healthy top line growth of 20.0% and sustained strong profit growth of 52.2% for the fourth fiscal quarter, as we ended our fiscal year 2014 on a strong note. During this past fiscal year, we achieved major milestones on both the top and bottom lines, with revenues exceeding US$1 billion to US$1.139 billion and net profit exceeding US$200 million to US$215.7 million for the first time. We are particularly encouraged that our 'Harvest the Market' strategy has driven a significant improvement in profitability during the year. Gross margin for fiscal year 2014 increased by 30 basis points to 60.3% from 60.0% in fiscal year 2013, operating margin increased by 450 basis points to 17.3% from 12.8%, and net margin increased by a very impressive 470 basis points to 18.9% from 14.2%."

Mr. Yu continued, "Starting in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014, we once again started to expand our network by adding a net of three learning centers, giving us a total of 703 schools and learning centers as of the end of fiscal year 2014. We also added more than 9,300 square meters of additional classroom area by expanding 10 of our existing learning centers. Moving into fiscal year 2015, we plan to extend our penetration rate in existing markets by adding capacity in cities where we are experiencing rapid growth and strong profitability."

Mr. Yu concluded, "Looking ahead, while we expect that the reduction in the size of our network over the last year, uncertainty about province-by-province implementation of new policies relating to the English test for the Gaokao college entrance exam, increased competition especially in second- and third-tier cities, and O2O product transitions in our POP Kids program will result in somewhat slower top-line growth in the first half of fiscal year 2015, we believe that the fundamentals of our business remain strong and that we will extend our clear leadership position in China's education market."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Although we did not expand our school network over the last fiscal year, we nevertheless continued to record strong growth momentum across our key business lines as we improved utilization rates across the network. Our overseas test preparation and overseas study consulting businesses together recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 22% to approximately US$440.6 million, while our U-Can grade 7 to 12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 23% to approximately US$328.4 million."

Outlook for First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2015

New Oriental expects total net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2015 (June 1, 2014, to August 31, 2014) to be in the range of US$412.0 million to US$427.5 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 6% to 10%. This lower-than-normal projected revenue growth rate reflects the anticipated impact on the Company's top-line performance of margin expansion initiatives in fiscal year 2014, the transition to a new POP Kids program, changes in product mix and business seasonality, as well as certain macroeconomic factors. We are in the process of reducing our previous learning center opening plan of 10 to 12 per quarter in light of the slower than expected revenue growth outlook for our first quarter of 2015.

The specific factors impacting the Company's guidance are:

• The fact that the Company has reduced the total number of schools and learning centers in its network, which decreased by a net of 23 during fiscal year 2014 to 703 at the end of fiscal year 2014 from 726 at the end of fiscal year 2013;
• The ongoing rollout of a revamped POP Kids program, which has impacted enrollments in this business line and is expected to be fully completed in the second quarter of fiscal year 2015;
• An expected continued decline in enrollments for the Company's legacy business lines of adult English and domestic college English test preparation;
• Uncertainty about the implementation of new policies related to the English test for the Gaokao, or college entrance exam, which is being determined on a province-by-province basis;
• Changing trends in the seasonality of the Company's business as its fastest-growing business line, K-12 after-school tutoring, experiences a slack season in the first fiscal quarter when primary and secondary schools are closed for the summer break;
• Growing local competition in second and third tier cities in the K-12 after-school tutoring segment;
• The slowing Chinese economy which has adversely affected discretionary consumer spending, notwithstanding the fact that educational services remain more resilient than most other discretionary consumer categories; and
• The recent depreciation of Renminbi against U.S. dollar.

Third Fiscal Quarter 2013 Financial Results

• Total net revenue increased by 16.4% year-over-year to US$254.4 million from US$218.5 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.27 and US$0.27, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.30 and US$0.30, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to have recorded continued improvement in profitability during the quarter, with net income growing by 50.2% year-over-year to approximately US$42.1 million and operating income increasing by 30.5% year-over-year to approximately US$30.7 million. We also saw continued strong margin expansion during this fiscal quarter, with operating margin increasing by 120 basis points to 12.0% from 10.8% and net margin increasing by 370 basis points to 16.5% from 12.8%. As we continued to benefit from the execution of our "Harvest the Market" strategy, during the first nine months of fiscal year 2014 our gross margin increased by 60 basis points to 60.3% from 59.7%, operating margin increased by 600 basis points to 19.6% from 13.6%, and net margin increased by 530 basis points to 20.3% from 15.0%. We are on track to achieve our full year operating margin target of 16% to 17% for this 2014 fiscal year."

Mr. Yu continued, "While we achieved very strong results on the bottom line during the quarter, we maintained a steady revenue growth rate of 16.4% year-over-year. This lower-than-forecasted revenue growth rate reflects a subdued growth in enrollments of 4.5% to approximately 602,900. Three factors in particular influenced enrollment growth during the quarter. First, we ended the third fiscal quarter with 700 schools and learning centers, 33 fewer than the year-ago period. We also opened new learning centers at a slower pace than expected during the quarter, with 5 new learning centers opened and 16 existing centers closed. In the quarters ahead, we plan to accelerate the pace of opening new learning centers, with a focus on opening new learning centers in fast growing, high profit margin cities. Second, our adult English and domestic college English test preparation business lines continued to decline, with revenues decreasing by 3.5% and 2.8%, respectively, year-on-year. Third, we experienced slower growth in our POP Kids programs targeting kids aged 6 to 12. Enrollments in these programs declined by approximately 12.2% year-over-year to approximately 163,400 in the third quarter. It is important to note that we are in the midst of launching new POP Kids programs in the third and fourth fiscal quarters and enrollments are typically slower during these transition periods. We expect POP Kids enrollments to pick up in the summer quarter once the new programs are launched and we increase promotional efforts."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Although the program transition currently underway in our POP Kids offering impacted growth in this segment during the quarter, we are encouraged that our overseas study business and middle and high school U-Can business continued to perform well. Our overseas test preparation and overseas study consulting businesses together recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 22.2% in the quarter, to approximately US$92.8 million, while our U-Can grade 7 to 12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 21.0% to approximately US$77.6 million."

Outlook for Fourth Quarter of Fiscal Year 2014

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2014 (March 1, 2014 to May 31, 2014) to be in the range of US$278.0 million to US$287.6 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 16% to 20%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Second Quarter 2014 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 25.6% year-over-year to US$208.3 million from US$165.9 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.03 and US$0.03, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.06 and US$0.06, respectively.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We celebrated the 20^th anniversary of New Oriental's establishment on November 16, 2013 at the Great Hall of the People, and I'm very pleased that we're capping this important milestone with a stellar set of quarterly financial results. We experienced robust revenue growth of 25.6% and continued strong net income growth of 127.1% year-over-year. Our student enrollments grew by 11.8% year-over-year to about 565,100, mostly driven by our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business which achieved 16% year-over-year growth to about 308,800 enrollments. Our solid quarterly top-line and student enrollment growth is particularly impressive considering we ended the second fiscal quarter with 711 schools and learning centers, 33 fewer than the year-ago period total of 744. This demonstrates strong organic growth and operating efficiency gains in our learning centers. We opened 11 new learning centers in 9 fast growing and high profit markets and closed 13 learning centers, including 6 underperforming ones, during the quarter. To meet the seasonally higher market demand for K-12 after-school tutoring in the coming winter and spring quarters, we will continue to open new learning centers in fast growing cities over the rest of this fiscal year."

Outlook for Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2014

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the third quarter of fiscal year 2014 (December 1, 2013 to February 28, 2014) to be in the range of US$260.0 million to US$270.9 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 19% to 24%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

First Quarter 2013 Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 15.7% year-over-year to US$388.7 million from US$335.8 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.85 and US$0.84, respectively vs. last year US$0.66 and US$0.65.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to report strong financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 that further validate our 'Harvest the Market' strategy. We substantially improved profitability during the quarter, with net income growth of 31.9% year-over-year to approximately US$126.5 million, operating income growth of 33.4% year-over-year to approximately US$135.5 million, and operating cash flow growth of 55.9% year-over-year to approximately US$167.4 million. In the quarters ahead, we will continue to focus on improving operating efficiency to drive long-term healthy growth and deliver sustained shareholder value."

Mr. Yu continued, "We maintained a healthy top-line growth rate of 15.7% year-over-year in the first fiscal quarter. While this was slightly below our initial target, we achieved this revenue growth rate despite recording lower-than-normal growth in student enrollments and closing 18 underperforming learning centers. Student enrollments in the quarter increased 2.3% year-over-year to approximately 919,400, with a number of factors dampening the growth rate. First, we continue to experience a slowdown in our legacy adult English and domestic college English test preparation business lines, which saw enrollments decrease by 14% and 6%, respectively, year-on-year. Second, we closed 18 underperforming learning centers in the quarter while opening just five new learning centers. By comparison, in the same period last year we added a net of 62 learning centers. Third, we continue to see market demand shifting towards smaller classes and VIP formats. As a result, enrollments in our large class formats declined by about 80,600 from 429,900 (or approximately 45% of our total enrollments) in the first fiscal quarter of 2013 to about 349,300 (or approximately 36% of our total enrollments) in the first fiscal quarter of 2014. Finally, our Shanghai school continued to underperform during the first quarter, with enrollments declining by about 12%."

Mr. Yu added, "Our first fiscal quarter is the seasonally strongest quarter for our most profitable overseas test preparation business but is not a peak quarter for our rapidly growing K-12 after-school tutoring business. Looking ahead, we expect revenues and enrollments to improve considerably in the next several quarters driven by growth in K-12 after-school tutoring enrollments as students prepare for final examinations at the end of the Autumn and Spring semesters, and for the critical gaokao (college entrance examination) and zhongkao (high school entrance examination) administered in early June of each year. Furthermore, we expect to open a net of approximately 20 to 30 new learning centers for the remainder of this fiscal year, starting from this month. These will be located in certain fast growing, high profit markets and will enable us to cater to strong demand for our K-12 after-school tutoring classes in these regions."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "We are very pleased with the substantial operating efficiency gains achieved since our successful pivot from our "Occupy the Market" to our "Harvest the Market" strategy last November, as we built on our leading position as China's preeminent language training and test preparation training school for K-College students. While we recorded slower top line growth in June, we experienced a nice rebound in demand in July and August. This has contributed to a strong deferred revenue balance of US$323.7 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2014. This represents an increase of 32.9% as compared to US$243.6 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2013. This pick-up in demand has continued into September and the first half of October where we have recorded a noticeable 8.3% increase in student enrollments year-over-year and an approximately 23% increase year-over-year in cash receipts, or cash collected in advance for enrollments, for this six-week period. As a result of this pick-up in demand, we have raised our outlook for revenue growth for the second fiscal quarter 2014 to a range of 22% to 27%."

Mr. Hsieh continued, "In this first fiscal quarter of 2014 we also successfully improved gross margins by 110 basis points to 65.9% from 64.8% in the year ago period, while achieving operating income growth of 33.4% year-over-year and GAAP operating margin improvement of 470 basis points year-over-year to 34.9%. As a result of this stronger-than-expected performance, we have raised our GAAP operating margin target for this 2014 fiscal year to a range of 16% to 17%, representing a 320 to 420 basis point improvement from the year ago period. This compares to our previous target of 15% to 16%, or a 220 to 320 basis point improvement."

Outlook for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2014

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014 (September 1, 2013, to November 30, 2013) to be in the range of US$202.4 million to US$210.7 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 22% to 27%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Fourth Quarter Financial Results

• Total net revenues increased by 26.6% year-over-year to US$239.6 million from US$189.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 73.4% year-over-year to US$28.2 million from US$16.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 48.4% year-over-year to US$35.2 million from US$23.7 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Operating income increased by 122.5% year-over-year to US$24.4 million from US$11.0 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP operating income, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 70.5% year-over-year to US$31.4 million from US$18.4 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.18 and US$0.18, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.23 and US$0.22, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to finish our 2013 fiscal year by recording strong revenue growth of 26.6% and substantial operating income growth of 122.5% in the fourth fiscal quarter. We are particularly encouraged that operating margin from continuing operations for the fourth fiscal quarter improved dramatically to 10.2% from 5.8% in the same period a year ago, which is an advance of 440 basis points year-on-year. Our stellar financial results in the third and fourth fiscal quarters demonstrate how we have successfully pivoted from our 'Occupy the Market' strategy towards our 'Harvest the Market' strategy. Since commencing this strategic transition in November 2012, we have driven improvements in bottom line performance by slowing our pace of expansion and closing over 50 underperforming learning centers. We have also reduced total headcount by over 3,600 in the last three quarters to approximately 30,700 by the end of our fiscal year from 34,300 at the end of the first fiscal quarter. Heading into fiscal year 2014, we will continue to focus on implementing the 'Harvest the Market' strategy, and we are confident that this will enable us to continue delivering improvements in operational efficiency and overall profitability."

Mr. Yu added, "New Oriental is recognized as the market leader in teaching quality and course content, as demonstrated by our dominance in brand awareness and preference surveys in large Chinese cities in K-12 after school tutoring and overseas test preparation, and we will continue to invest heavily in extending our market leading position. For example, we are rapidly moving our content platform online and enhancing its functionality so that it can be easily accessed from mobile devices and personal computers. As a result of this multi-year initiative, our Koolearn.com online platform is already the leading education website among K-College learners, with over 8.5 million registered users in China. Consistent with the saying "Content is King" our strategy is to become the content provider of choice for online education platforms in China."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "In the full fiscal year 2013, we recorded total net revenues of US$959.9 million, representing a 27.4% increase year-over-year. This excellent top line performance was driven by continued strong growth in our two main business lines. Our overseas test preparation and overseas study consulting businesses recorded combined year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 28% to approximately US$350 million during the fiscal year, while our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 40% to approximately US$411 millionin fiscal year 2013."

Mr. Hsieh continued, "Student enrollments grew by 6.1% to approximately 559,000 in the fourth fiscal quarter and by 5.7% to approximately 2,540,000 for the full fiscal year 2013. This was in line with our expectation for the period, as we transitioned towards the 'Harvest the Market' strategy. The deceleration in student enrollment growth rate compared to the previous fiscal year was largely due to two factors. First, we have strictly controlled the pace of expansion and closed or disposed of 73 underperforming learning centers during fiscal year 2013. Second, we continue to see a shift in market demand towards smaller classes and VIP formats, which have one teacher to a maximum of five students. As a result, enrollments in our large class formats have declined by about 200,000 from a peak of about 1.125 million in fiscal year 2011, when the large classes representing approximately 60% of educational services enrollments, to about 925,000 for fiscal year 2013, representing approximately 40% of educational services enrollments. Nevertheless, overall enrollment growth remains healthy and for the full fiscal year 2014 we are targeting continued strong revenue growth of approximately 18% to 22% driven by growth in enrollment and ASPs, and the continued shift in demand toward more expensive, smaller-size classes. Furthermore, we expect that the enrollment growth rate will pick up once again in the second half of fiscal year 2014 when we plan to open between 20 and 50 new learning centers in rapidly growing markets to take advantage of the busy Winter and Spring seasons. These are the peak periods for our classes aimed at students taking the Chinese college entrance exam, gaokao, and high school entrance exam,zhongkao, both of which are administered in early June each year.

Outlook for First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2014

The Company plans to continue its 'Harvest the Market' strategy in fiscal year 2014, focusing on high-quality, high-margin revenues to aggressively drive continued margin expansion and bottom line growth and to position the business for long term success.

Consistent with this strategy, in fiscal year 2014 New Oriental forecasts revenues to grow by 18% to 22% year-on-year, GAAP operating margins to improve between 200 and 300 basis points to between 15% and 16% compared to 12.8% in fiscal year 2013, and non-GAAP operating margins to increase to between 18% and 19% compared to 15.6% in fiscal year 2013.

With respect to the first quarter, New Oriental expects total net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2014 (June 1, 2013, to August 31, 2013) to be in the range of US$389.6 million to US$406.4 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 16% to 21%. This lower than normal projected revenue growth rate reflects the anticipated impact on the Company's top-line performance of efficiency and margin expansion initiatives as well as certain macroeconomic factors. More specifically, it reflects:

1. The closure or disposal of 73 underperforming learning centers during fiscal year 2013.
2. The fact that no new learning centers have been opened to date in the first fiscal quarter through July 22, 2013, compared to the 89 new learning centers opened in the first quarter of fiscal year 2013.
3. Intensifying local competition particularly in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.
4. The slowing Chinese economy which has adversely affected discretionary consumer purchases notwithstanding the fact that high end educational services remain more resilient than most other discretionary consumer categories.

This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Declaration of Special Cash Dividend

New Oriental's board of directors has declared a special cash dividend in the amount of US$0.35 per ADS. This represents a 17% increase from the special dividend of US$0.30 paid in September 2012. The cash dividend will be paid on October 7, 2013, to shareholders of record at the close of business on September 6, 2013. The ex-dividend date will be September 4, 2013. The aggregate amount of cash dividends to be paid is approximatelyUS$54 million, which will be funded by surplus cash on the Company's balance sheet.

BEIJING, June 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced the completion of the US$50 million share repurchase program authorized by its board of directors in April 2013.

Under the program, the Company repurchased 2,445,500 shares, representing approximately 1.6% of its outstanding shares as at June 18, 2013, at an average price of US$20.40 per share during the period from April 29 to June 14, 2013.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented,  "The successful execution of this share repurchase program demonstrates both our continued commitment to returning value to our shareholders and our confidence in the long-term potential of the company. Given our strong cash position, we believe that the program represented a good investment at this time. We continue to execute our 'Harvest the Market' strategy, which is focused on improving operational efficiency and increasing profitability, and we are confident that this approach will deliver sustained margin improvement and drive long-term growth."

 Third Fiscal Quarter 2013 Financial Results

• Net Revenues of US$218.5 million, representing a 28.6% increase year-over-year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental for the quarter was US$34.7 million, representing a 23.9% increase from the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS attributable to New Oriental were US$0.22 and US$0.22, respectively. 

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to report solid results for the third fiscal quarter with sustained top-line growth of 28.6%, which was well above the guidance range of 22% to 27% growth, as well as stronger than expected operating income growth of 35.9%, and profit growth of 25% year-over-year. Further, during the quarter we achieved notable progress in a number of important areas. For instance, we experienced encouraging improvements at our two largest schools in Beijing andShanghai. As a result of an effective restructuring program over the past few months, these two schools recorded a combined increase in revenues of 17% and a combined increase in net income of 9% year-over-year. Moreover, we are encouraged by the year-on-year improvement in overall operating margin this quarter, following margin compression in the previous five quarters when we focused on rapid expansion of our learning center network. During the period, we continued to transition to our 'Harvest the Market' strategy and, as a result, recorded GAAP operating margin of 10.8%, compared to 10.2% in the same period a year ago."

Mr. Yu continued, "At the core of our 'Harvest the Market' strategy is an emphasis on improving operational efficiency and increasing profitability. We imposed strict top-down control over learning center openings and closed some underperforming learning centers in a few cities. We closed a total of 22 learning centers in the quarter and opened 11 learning centers in fast growing markets. We also reduced our total headcount by about 1,200 during the quarter. The 'Harvest the Market' strategy and accompanying operating discipline translated into healthy operating margin expansion in the third quarter and we expect continued improvement in operational efficiency in the coming quarters as we increase the utilization and class offerings in our existing facilities. While we have slowed our pace of expansion considerably, given the significant potential of the Chinese market, our strong presence in the key markets, and our outstanding brand advantage nationwide, we are confident that we can continue to maintain healthy top-line growth."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "The slight year-over-year decrease in enrollments this quarter was largely due to the closing of approximately 30 underperforming learning centers in the past two quarters and the late timing of Chinese New Year ("CNY") in 2013. CNY occurred on February 10 this year compared to January 23 last year, which meant that the winter holiday for most public schools fell approximately 10 days later in 2013 than in 2012. This shift, in turn, delayed a significant portion of student enrollment for our Spring semester classes, pushing sign-up from February to March this year. We have seen that spillover reflected in our early results for the fourth fiscal quarter. In the first six weeks of our fourth quarter, we recorded a noticeable 14% increase in enrollments year-over-year and a 34% increase year-over-year in cash receipts, or cash collected in advance for enrollments."

Mr. Hsieh continued, "To the best of our knowledge, as of the date of this earnings release we have not experienced a material negative impact on enrollments or revenues from the spread of the avian virus H7N9 inChina. We are hopeful that so long as the H7N9 outbreak can be contained, and there are no documented instances of human-to-human transmission, the Chinese government will not close education facilities or ban large gatherings of people."

Outlook for Fourth Quarter of Fiscal Year 2013

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013 (March 1, 2013, to May 31, 2013) to be in the range of US$232.8 million to US$242.2 million. Compared to the Company's reported net revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2012, which included revenues from ELITE English, year-over-year revenue growth is expected to be in the range of 20% to 25%. If the impact from the disposal of the ELITE English business is excluded, year-over-year revenue growth is expected to be in the range of 23% to 28%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Adoption of Share Repurchase Program

On April 23, 2013, New Oriental's board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to US$50 million of the Company's shares during the period from April 29, 2013, through July 31, 2013.

Highlights for the Fiscal Quarter Ended August 31, 2012

• Total net revenues increased by 25.8% year-over-year to US$335.8 million from US$266.9 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 5.7% year-over-year to US$95.9 million from US$90.7 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 5.2% year-over-year to US$102.6 million from US$97.5 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Income from operations increased by 6.7% year-over-year to US$101.6 million from US$95.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP income from operations, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 6.2% year-over-year to US$108.3 million from US$102.0 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.62 and US$0.61, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.66 and US$0.65, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to start our 2013 fiscal year with continued steady top-line growth, driven by our tremendous growth beyond tier-one cities. We opened 89 new learning centers, and closed 8 and disposed of 19 ELITE learning centers, with a net increase of 62 learning centers during the quarter. The majority of our new learning centers are located in second- and third-tier cities, as we work to achieve critical mass and economies of scale in these fast-growing markets. Revenue from these cities grew an impressive 35% as we were able to ramp up utilization quickly and efficiently. The rapid expansion of our learning-center network, however, had a negative impact on the bottom line, which was exacerbated by the weak performance of our Beijing and Shanghai schools and substantial expenses and diversion of management attention as a result of the SEC investigation and Muddy Waters' unfounded allegations against us.

"As we wind down our 'Occupy the Market' learning center expansion strategy where we nearly doubled our number of learning centers from 367 at May 31, 2010 to 726 as of August 31, 2012 in order to reach economies of scale in our 49 cities and to assist in attaining our goal of being number one or number two in every one of our 49 city markets within six years of establishment in each respective market, we will now shift our focus to substantially improving our profitability with our 'Harvest the Market' strategy. Our 'Harvesting the Market' strategy is comprised of: firstly, dramatically slowing down learning center growth and primarily opening centers in fast growing second-tier cities; secondly, increasing utilization rates at existing learning centers, closing down unprofitable learning centers and eliminating associated staff; thirdly, diligently controlling headcount, marketing and G&A expenses; and, finally, refraining from venturing into new business lines which require substantial upfront investments. We expect these monetization strategies to begin to pay off in our third fiscal quarter starting December 2012."

Mr. Yu continued, "We feel exonerated and vindicated by the findings of the Special Committee refuting and discrediting Muddy Waters' allegations. We hope to put this matter behind us and focus on running our business and improving the profitability of our operations through increasing learning center utilization and strict headcount and expense controls."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "We are pleased to see continued strong growth across our key business lines, with revenue from both our overseas test preparation programs and K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring programs growing over 30% this quarter. Our VIP personalized classes continued their outstanding growth, with year-over-year cash revenue increasing by 85%. Our Vision Overseas Study Consulting business also continued to outperform, with year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 55% in the quarter."

Mr. Hsieh continued, "We are pleased to announce that four of our Chinese college entrance examination, or gaokao, students achieved the number one score in their respective provinces this year, and three of our students achieved the highest score in their respective cities. This exceeds last year's stellar performance in which four New Oriental students achieved the highest gaokaoscore in their respective provinces and one student achieved a number one score in his/her city. Our students' accolades and outstanding results demonstrate the excellent quality of New Oriental's education programs and further cement our position as the number one K-12 after school tutoring and gaokao test preparation school in China."

Outlook for Second quarter of Fiscal Year 2013

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2013 (September 1, 2012, to November 30, 2012) to be in the range of US$165.0 million to US$171.6 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 25% to 30%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

BEIJING, October 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services inChina, today announced that the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company (the "Special Committee") has completed its review of certain allegations raised in a report issued by Muddy Waters on July 18, 2012 and has found no significant evidence to support these allegations. As previously announced, the Special Committee was formed on July 20, 2012, and is comprised of the three independent Directors of the Company, Mr. Denny Lee, Mr. Robin Yanhong Li, and Dr. John Zhuang Yang. The Special Committee retained Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP ("Simpson Thacher") to assist it in conducting an independent review of certain allegations contained in the Muddy Waters report; Simpson Thacher, in turn, has been assisted in its efforts by Ernst & Young (China) Advisory Limited and Commerce & Finance Law Offices.

Together with Simpson Thacher, the Special Committee focused its investigation on the three core allegations articulated in the Muddy Waters report, summarized as follows: (1) the allegation that some or all of the Company's schools are actually franchises-in-disguise and thus inaccurately inflate the Company's count of its own schools and its revenue said to be derived therefrom; (2) the allegation that the Company's financial statements do not accurately reflect enterprise income tax paid by the Beijing Haidian school; and (3) the allegation that the Company's consolidation of the financial results of the variable interest entity and its subsidiaries (collectively, the "VIE") into its own financials is improper because the Company does not have sufficient control over the VIE necessary for consolidation under U.S. GAAP. The scope of the Special Committee's investigation did not extend to examination of various general and un-particularized allegations for which the Muddy Waters report provided no specific detail.

The Special Committee's work on the "franchise" issue uncovered no significant evidence that supports the Muddy Waters allegation mentioned above. The evidence collected indicates that the Company does have ownership interests in its 55 schools and associated learning centers. The activity related to the 21 third parties with whom New Oriental has entered into brand "cooperation agreements" is entirely separate, is immaterial, and in any event is properly accounted for in the Company's financial statements.

The Special Committee's work on the tax issue uncovered no significant evidence that supports the Muddy Waters allegation mentioned above.

The Special Committee understands that the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance is engaged in a review of the Company's consolidation of the financial results of the VIE into the Company's consolidated financial statements. Accordingly, the Special Committee's work on that issue is likewise continuing.

The Company will continue to fully cooperate with the SEC on the issue concerning consolidation of the VIE. The Company will file a Form 12b-25 with the SEC to request an automatic extension for the filing of the Company's annual report on Form 20-F covering its fiscal year ended May 31, 2012, as permitted under Rule 12b-25 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

BEIJING, July 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced that members of its senior management team, including its chairman and chief executive officer Michael Minhong Yu, director, president and chief financial officer Louis T. Hsieh, director and executive vice president Chenggang Zhou, executive president, domestic business Xiangdong Chen and senior vice president Yunlong Sha, have informed the Company of their intention to use their personal funds to purchase the Company's American depositary shares ("ADS") on the open market for an aggregate amount up to a maximum of $50 million within the next three months, in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 and Rule 10b-18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The senior management team who will participate in the share purchase plan has agreed not to sell any shares or ADS of the Company held by them or their affiliates for a period of six months commencing today.

Michael Minhong Yu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of New Oriental, commented, "We remain confident in the long-term prospects of New Oriental's business and this share purchase plan demonstrates our confidence."

BEIJING, July 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today responded to the allegations raised in a report dated July 18, 2012 issued by Muddy Waters. New Oriental believes that the Muddy Waters report contains numerous errors of facts, misleading speculations and malicious interpretations of events.

As previously disclosed, New Oriental had 664 Company owned and operated schools and learning centers as of May 31, 2012. The Muddy Waters report alleged that a significant number of these schools and learning centers were instead operated by franchisees, and that the Company consolidates these franchisees' results of operations and assets as though they were the Company's own. The Muddy Waters report is wrong. New Oriental stands firmly by its statement that all of the 664 schools and learning centers as of May 31, 2012 were, and are, its own. Although New Oriental started a small pilot program beginning in fiscal year 2010 whereby it permits third parties in certain small cities to offer its "Pop Kids" English program and "New Oriental Star" kindergarten program under a brand name cooperation model, that pilot program is immaterial to the Company. Moreover, New Oriental has never included these cooperation facilities, which never exceeded 21 facilities in total, in the counts of its own schools and learning centers, nor has New Oriental included student enrollments from these cooperation facilities as its own student enrollments. New Oriental has properly recorded license and training fees paid to New Oriental by these cooperation facilities in New Oriental's revenues according to U.S. GAAP. For the fiscal years ended May 31, 2010 and 2011, New Oriental recognized revenues in an aggregate amount of US$35,000 and US$249,000, respectively, from license and training fees received from the cooperation facilities, representing 0.009% and 0.045% of New Oriental's total revenues, respectively.

New Oriental's Board of Directors has been informed of the allegations made by Muddy Waters and will consider and decide on the necessary and appropriate course of action in response to the allegations. New Oriental will release additional information concerning the allegations in due course. New Oriental is committed to providing full and accurate disclosure to investors and to rebutting any false claims that attempt to undermine confidence in New Oriental's business, management, operations and corporate structure

SEC Investigation

On July 13, 2012, the Company was informed that the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (the "SEC") had issued a formal order of investigation captioned "In the Matter of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc." The Company believes that the investigation concerns whether there is a sufficient basis for the consolidation of Beijing New Oriental Education & Technology (Group) Co., Ltd., a variable interest entity of the Company, and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, into the Company's consolidated financial statements. The Company intends to fully cooperate with the SEC in its investigation.

Highlights for the Fourth Fiscal Quarter Ended May 31, 2012

• Total net revenues increased by 40.7% year-over-year to US$193.3 million from US$137.4 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 13.6% year-over-year to US$16.3 million from US$14.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 23.1% year-over-year to US$23.7 million from US$19.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Income from operations decreased by 9.4% year-over-year to US$9.4 million from US$10.4 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP income from operations, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 10.0% year-over-year to US$16.9 million from US$15.4 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.10 and US$0.10, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.15 and US$0.15, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.
• Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses increased by 7.7% year-over-year to approximately 527,000 from approximately 489,100 in the same period of the prior fiscal year.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to see strong revenue growth of 40.7% in the fourth fiscal quarter. We sustained a healthy top line growth trend in the full fiscal year 2012 with revenues of about US$771.7 million, up more than 38%, and student enrollments of over 2.4 million, up about 15%. Our student enrollment growth in the fourth fiscal quarter was 7.7%, below the average for the full fiscal year. The slower growth in student enrollment in the fourth fiscal quarter was primarily due to the early timing ofChinese New Year in 2012. Many students enrolled in New Oriental's Spring tutoring classes in February of the third fiscal quarter rather than in early March of the fourth fiscal quarter. As a result, we experienced strong enrollment growth of 21.6% in the third fiscal quarter and slower enrollment growth of 7.7% in the fourth fiscal quarter."

Mr. Yu continued, "During this quarter, we continued to execute on our plan for rapid expansion by adding another 56 new learning centers. Our total number of schools and learning centers increased from 487 as of the end of the last fiscal year to 664 as of the end of fiscal year 2012, representing a net addition of 177 for the fiscal year. Our total office and classroom space increased by more than 200,000 square meters in fiscal year 2012. In the quarters ahead, we will continue to add learning centers, albeit primarily smaller ones, particularly in the 48 cities outside of Beijing and Shanghai where we already have schools. In fiscal year 2012, our oldest and most mature schools in Beijing and Shanghai continued to experience a slowdown in combined top-line growth, which declined to about 29% in U.S. dollar terms. By comparison, our other schools saw top-line growth of about 43% in U.S. dollar terms. We continue to see enormous growth potential in our schools outside of Beijing and Shanghai and will maintain our expansion strategy to reach critical mass in these cities and secure our objective of being number one, or at least number two, in each of our city markets.

"Despite this heavy investment in our business, we still achieved our target of 30% growth on both the top and bottom lines in fiscal year 2012. However, non-GAAP operating margin declined to 18.3% in fiscal year 2012 from 20.1% in fiscal year 2011. In the coming fiscal year, we plan to carefully manage our facility and staff expansion, with a focus on balancing business growth with operational efficiency and profitability. By building more small-sized learning centers in existing cities, we will ensure that total office and classroom space increases at a lower rate compared to fiscal year 2012. We are confident that New Oriental's market leadership position combined with strong execution will ensure healthy growth and profitability in the long term."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Our strong top-line performance in this fiscal year was led by sustained strong momentum for some key business lines. First, our overseas test preparation programs recorded year-over-year enrollment growth of about 7.3% to over 340,100, and year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 43% to about US$238 million in this fiscal year. Second, our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year enrollment growth of over 25% to over 1,324,000 and year-over-year gross revenue growth of over 52% to about US$294 million in this fiscal year. Third, our VIP personalized classes recorded year-over-year enrollment growth of more than 61% to over 102,300 and year-over-year cash receipts growth of over 71% to about US$207 million in this fiscal year. Besides our language training and test preparation business, our Vision Overseas Study Consulting business recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 85% to about US$42.5 million in this fiscal year."

Outlook for First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2013

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 (June 1, 2012 toAugust 31, 2012) to be in the range of US$342.7 million to US$356.3 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 26% to 31%, respectively. The lower-than-normal projected revenue growth rate is primarily due to the following factors: (1) very challenging year-over-year comparisons with the first quarter of the fiscal year 2012 when revenue grew 41.4% and net income grew 45.5% year-over-year; (2) the negative impact from a slowing of Chinese consumer discretionary spending, even in traditionally resilient areas like education services; and (3) the expected lack of RMB currency translation benefit as RMB appreciation seems to have halted, and in some time periods reversed, its ascent vis--vis the U.S. Dollar, the Company's reporting currency. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

BEIJING, July 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE: EDU), the largest provider of private educational services in China, is pleased to announce that it has further strengthened its corporate structure by simplifying the shareholding structure of Beijing New Oriental Education & Technology (Group) Co., Ltd. ("New Oriental China").

New Oriental China is a variable interest entity, or VIE, of the Company. Prior to the changes in the shareholding structure of New Oriental China that were initiated in December 2011, equity interests in New Oriental China had been held by eleven registered shareholders, including an entity controlled by Mr. Michael Minhong Yu, the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. These shareholders had entered into contractual arrangements to enable the Company to effectively control and be the primary beneficiary of New Oriental China. Except for the one shareholder, which is an entity controlled by Mr. Yu, all former ultimate shareholders of New Oriental China were former employees or shareholders of the Company who no longer work at the Company or ceased to have a meaningful stake in the Company. The Company believes that New Oriental China's equity interests should only be held by the shareholders whose interests are more closely aligned with those of the Company, and that the interests of Mr. Yu, who is the Company's founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, are aligned with those of the Company, given the significant beneficial ownership Mr. Yu has in the Company and his continuing leadership position at the Company.

In light of the above and in an effort to further strengthen the Company's corporate structure and control over New Oriental China, the Company requested the ten former shareholders of New Oriental China to transfer all of their equity interests in New Oriental China to the one shareholder, which is an entity controlled by Mr. Yu, without consideration. These transfers began in December 2011 and were completed in January 2012 when the new shareholding structure was officially registered with the local administration for industry and commerce. Equity pledge agreements reflecting the new shareholding structure were executed in April 2012 and duly registered in May 2012. New Oriental China is now solely held by the entity controlled by Mr. Yu. Since 2005, this entity has been bound by the contractual arrangements it entered into with the Company's wholly-owned subsidiaries, which enable the Company to exercise effective control over and be the primary beneficiary of New Oriental China.

The aforementioned changes in New Oriental China's shareholding structure have had no adverse effect on the Company or its shareholders. They have not affected, and will not affect, the consolidation of New Oriental China in the Company's consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with the U.S. GAAP throughout the period since 2005 and going forward.

The Company intends to continue to review and evaluate its corporate structure and make modifications to the existing contractual arrangements, if necessary and appropriate, for the purpose of enhancing the corporate structure and governance.

Third Quarter 2011 Results

• Total net revenues increased by 31.7% year-over-year to US$174.5 million from US$132.5 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental decreased by 3.7% year-over-year to US$22.4 million from US$23.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 5.3% year-over-year to US$28.0 million from US$26.6 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Income from operations decreased by 21.8% year-over-year to US$16.6 million from US$21.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP income from operations, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, decreased by 9.6% year-over-year to US$22.2 million from US$24.6 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.14 and US$0.14, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.18 and US$0.18, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.
• Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses increased by 21.6% year-over-year to approximately 596,100 from approximately 490,200 in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• The total number of schools and learning centers increased to 608 in the quarter ended February 29, 2012, up from 527 in the previous quarter. New Oriental built a net of 81 learning centers in the quarter.

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "Our key growth drivers continued their strong momentum this quarter. First, our overseas test preparation programs recorded year-over-year enrollment growth of about 10% to approximately 80,500, and year-over-year gross revenue growth of over 26% to approximately US$55 million in this quarter. Second, our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year enrollment growth of about 30% to over 371,500 and year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 48% to over US$69 million in this quarter. Third, our VIP personalized classes recorded the most rapid pace of growth, with year-over-year enrollment growth of more than 62% to over 25,500 and year-over-year cash revenue growth of over 73% to about US$53.5 million in this quarter. Finally, our Vision Overseas Study Consulting business continued to outperform, with year-over-year gross revenue growth of approximately 55% to over US$7 million in the third quarter."

Declaration of Special Cash Dividend

New Oriental's board of directors has declared a special cash dividend in the amount of US$0.30 per ADS. The cash dividend will be paid on September 29, 2012 to shareholders of record at the close of business on August 31, 2012. The ex-dividend date will be August 29, 2012. The aggregate amount of cash dividends to be paid is approximately US$50 million, which will be funded by surplus cash on the New Oriental's balance sheet.

Second Quarter 2011 Results

• Total net revenues increased by 38.0% year-over-year to US$132.0 million from US$95.7 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 80.5% year-over-year to US$3.3 million from US$1.8 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 46.0% year-over-year to US$7.5 million from US$5.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Loss from operations increased by 94.6% year-over-year to US$4.0 million from US$2.1 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP income from operations, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, decreased by 81.2% year-over-year to US$0.2 million from US$1.3 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS were US$0.02 and US$0.02, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, were US$0.05 and US$0.05, respectively. Each ADS represents one common share of the Company.
• Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses increased by 16.2% year-over-year to approximately 471,600 from approximately 405,800 in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Total number of schools and learning centers increased to 527 in the quarter ended November 30, 2011, up from 488 in the previous quarter. New Oriental built a net of 39 learning centers in the quarter.

Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "In the second quarter of the fiscal year, which is our seasonally slowest quarter, we posted solid revenue growth of 38.0% and even higher profit growth of 80.5% year-over-year. This is particularly pleasing considering we had very challenging comparables against last year's fiscal second quarter when we experienced a strong bounce back from the negative effect on our business due to the Shanghai World Expo in the summer of 2010 and recorded exceptionally strong revenue growth of over 56% and student enrollment growth of over 32%. In this fiscal quarter, by comparison, our student enrollments grew by 16.2% to about 471,600. To meet the continued strong market demand, especially in the K-12 after-school tutoring segment, during this quarter we opened a net of 39 learning centers in about 20 existing cities. More than half of these are small facilities of approximately 500 square meters or less, which is in line with our strategy to "fill in" the convenient locations in markets where we have a strong presence."

Mr. Yu continued, "Although spending on educational services remains resilient and demand for New Oriental's educational services, in particular, continues to be very strong in the face of a slowing Chinese economy, we do expect the early timing of this year's Chinese New Year festival, which falls on January 23, to have a negative impact on our net revenues and profits for our third fiscal quarter ending February 28, 2012. Since the festival falls earlier this year, the 2012 Chinese New Year winter holiday for school-aged students has been shortened by up to a week in most provinces, leaving students with less time to attend New Oriental classes. We experienced a similar situation in 2009 when Chinese New Year also fell early, on January 26. However, in 2009 we saw a very strong bounce back in the fourth fiscal quarter ending May 31, with revenues up approximately 48% and net income up approximately 50% as Chinese students preparing to take the college and high school entrance exams in early June returned to New Oriental to make up for the test prep classes normally taken during the winter break. We anticipate a similar effect this year, and we are hopeful of a strong rebound in New Oriental's business in our fiscal fourth quarter this year."

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, commented, "We are delighted to record solid performances across each of our key business lines this quarter. First, our overseas test preparation programs recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of over 52% to over US$43 million and year-over-year enrollment growth of about 1% to 74,200, despite difficult comparisons to the second quarter of the previous fiscal year when the post-Expo rebound drove enrollments up by 39%. Second, our K-12 all-subjects after-school tutoring business recorded year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 45% to over US$44 million and year-over-year enrollment growth of more than 33% to over 232,900. Third, our VIP personalized classes experienced the most rapid pace of growth, with year-over-year cash revenue growing by more than 52% to over US$45 million and year-over-year enrollments increasing by about 42% to over 20,100. Finally, our Vision Overseas Study Consulting business maintained strong momentum, with year-over-year revenue growth of over 90% to about US$3.8 million."

Outlook for Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2012

New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012 (December 1, 2011, to February 29, 2012) to be in the range of US$168.3 million to US$176.2 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 27.0% to 33.0%. This revenue outlook reflects the anticipated negative impact on the Company's business of the early timing of Chinese New Year, which falls on January 23 this year. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

First Quarter 2012 Results

BEIJING and HONG KONG, July 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc. (the "Company" or "New Oriental") (NYSE:EDU - News), the largest provider of private educational services in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended May 31, 2011. The Company also announced that it will change the ratio of its American depositary shares ("ADSs") to Common Shares from one (1) ADS representing four (4) Common Shares to one (1) ADS representing one (1) Common Share, effective on August 18, 2011.

Third Quarter Results:

• Total net revenues increased by 48.6% year-over-year to US$132.5 million from US$89.2 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Net income attributable to New Oriental increased by 68.1% year-over-year to US$23.3 million from US$13.8 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Non-GAAP net income attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 42.4% year-over-year to US$26.6 million from US$18.7 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Income from operations increased by 55.5% year-over-year to US$21.2 million from US$13.6 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year. Non-GAAP income from operations, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, increased by 32.8% year-over-year to US$24.6 million from US$18.5 million in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Basic and diluted net income attributable to New Oriental per ADS was US$0.61 and US$0.60, respectively. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net income per ADS attributable to New Oriental, which excludes share-based compensation expenses, was US$0.69 and US$0.68, respectively. Each ADS represents four common shares of the Company.
• Total student enrollments in academic subjects tutoring and test preparation courses increased by 17.8% year-over-year to approximately 490,200 from approximately 416,000 in the same period of the prior fiscal year.
• Total number of schools and learning centers increased to 456 in the quarter ended February 28, 2011, up from 447 in the previous quarter. New Oriental established one school in Nantong city and a net of 8 learning centers in the quarter. The total number of schools increased to 52 and the total number of learning centers to 404 as of February 28, 2011.
• New Oriental expects its total net revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2011 (March 1, 2011 to May 31, 2011) to be in the range of US$114.3 million to US$118.6 million, representing year-over-year growth in the range of 32% to 37%. This forecast reflects New Oriental's current and preliminary view, which is subject to change.

Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's President and Chief Financial Officer, stated, "Strong top line growth was primarily driven by the continued stellar performance of several key business lines, with year-over-year gross revenue growth rates of about 55% for overseas test preparation, about 133% for non-English U-Can all-subjects training and about 140% for VIP personalized instruction. First, our overseas test preparation segment maintained strong momentum with year-over-year enrollment growth of more than 33% to over 73,100 and year-over-year gross revenue growth of about 55% to about US$43.4 million in this quarter. We remain the dominant player in the overseas test preparation market in China with approximately US$152 million gross revenues and over 311,000 enrollments in the 12–month period ended February 28, 2011.

Preliminary Financial and Student Enrollments Results – First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2011

(US$ in Millions, except per ADS data, student enrollments and percentages)

GeoTeam® Note: Analysts had been exptecting EPS of $1.90

 "Although we experienced disappointing student enrollment growth of approximately 8% to approximately 700,000 enrollments for the summer quarter, we managed to achieve net revenues of approximately $192 million or revenue growth of approximately 29%, within our guidance range of 26% to 32% stated in the last earnings release," said Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "There are several reasons for the enrollments shortfall. Firstly, this year's summer break for Chinese students was about a week shorter than usual due to a relatively long winter break earlier this year to accommodate a late Chinese New Year. Secondly, the Shanghai World Expo adversely affected student enrollments in our Shanghai school which experienced a 6% decrease in enrollments, compared to an 11% increase in the summer of 2009, from approximately 68,000 enrollments last summer to approximately 64,000 enrollments this summer. We believe that thousands of students from outside Shanghai elected not to study in Shanghai this past summer in order to avoid the crowds visiting the Shanghai Expo and the associated elevated lodging and meal expenses. We further believe that of the estimated 20 million to 30 million school-aged students who did visit the Shanghai Expo this summer, many of them did so by deciding to spend their time and money at the Expo instead of enrolling in summer classes. Thirdly, we experienced a greater than expected decrease of 11% to approximately 110,000 in our adult English program enrollments this summer, compared to approximately 124,000 in the year ago period."

^a The above forecasts reflect the Company's current and preliminary views and are therefore subject to change. Please refer to the Company's Safe Harbor Statement (usually in press releases) for the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

^b Non-GAAP EPS figures generally exclude certain non-operating gains and losses as well as certain non-cash items. Non-GAAP information should not be viewed in isolation or as a substitute for reported, or GAAP information . For a more complete explanation of the company's definition of non-GAAP please refer to its financial press releases. The GeoTeam® non-GAAP figures may, from time to time, differ from company supplied figures.

'During the third quarter, the economic slowdown in China had a greater than anticipated effect on our adult English courses. To reflect our revised expectations, in mid-February 2009, we issued a press release adjusting our third fiscal quarter 2009 revenue guidance downwards.  As it turns out, adult English enrollments for the quarter were approximately 50,300, up slightly from approximately 50,100 in the year ago period, but below our prior expectations,' said Michael Yu, New Oriental's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. 'Furthermore, our financial results were negatively impacted by the early timing of Chinese New Year this year which occurred on January 26, 2009, almost two weeks earlier than last year. Despite these challenges, we are pleased to report revenue increased 36.1% year-over-year to $65.4 million, exceeding the top end of the revised guidance range. In addition, we are pleased that a strong bounce back in enrollments in February boosted total student enrollments in language training and test preparation courses for the quarter to about 351,700, an increase of 31% year-over-year.'

^a The above forecasts reflect the Company's current and preliminary views and are therefore subject to change. Please refer to the Company's Safe Harbor Statement (usually in press releases) for the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement.

Guidance Report:

Change in Third Quarter Fiscal 2009 Guidance Ending December

'The economic downturn in China has had a greater than anticipated effect on New Oriental's cash proceeds (cash collected from students in advance for course enrollments) over the past several weeks and we are therefore revising our third fiscal quarter 2009 revenue guidance downwards to reflect current expectations,' said Louis T. Hsieh, New Oriental's chief financial officer. 'We believe that this is a short term effect, as Chinese families place a high priority on spending for their children's education, behind only food and housing. As the trusted leader in China's private education market New Oriental should continue to benefit from these strong underlying fundamentals.'

Source: PR Newswire (February 12, 2009)