New Oriental's share price has risen. Can East Buy and live broadcast e-commerce really bring New Oriental back to life?
New Oriental Education Brand Logo
On the evening of January 5, Koolearn Technology Holding Limited (Chinese: 新东方在线) announced that the company’s board of directors proposed to change the company’s name from Koolearn Technology Holding Limited to East Buy Holding Limited (Chinese: 东方甄选).
7 months after the live broadcast unexpectedly became popular, the brand East Buy may officially appear in the capital market.
According to the announcement, the reason for the renaming of Koolearn is that the current name does not fully cover all the company's business lines and the company's well-known brands in mainland China.
At the end of 2021, Koolearn announced the layout of live broadcast e-commerce, the establishment of the East Buy brand, and the launch of live broadcast delivery business. In June 2022, East Buy, which had been on the air for more than half a year but did not see any improvement, suddenly became popular with the bilingual content of its anchor.
Since then, the attention of East Buy has risen rapidly, and the number of fans and goods delivered has skyrocketed.
Koolearn stated that the company recognizes that the business focus has shifted to live e-commerce and the long-term growth potential that this field can bring to the group. It is believed that the new name can better reflect the company's current and future business direction and enable the company to better establish relationships with customers.
The Board of Directors of the company believes that the proposed name change is in the best interests of the company's shareholders as a whole. According to the plan, Koolearn will hold a general meeting of shareholders on January 31, 2023 to consider the name change proposal.
Koolearn is a subsidiary of New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc., mainly engaging in the online education business.
According to previous announcements, Koolearn’s new businesses include live e-commerce, smart learning products, STEAM (education, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) education and vocational education.
Live streaming is just one of Koolearn’s new businesses, but it is undoubtedly its most prominent new business. Since June 2022, Koolearn's stock price has continued to rise, and the current stock price has far exceeded that before the “double reduction” (Chinese: 双减). The company's latest market value exceeds HKD 50 billion.