Online Learning is a Big Industry in Emerging Markets where Paid Apps Find Traction. China’s Internet Giant, Tencent recently released a special edition of its QQ product. The special version has added Tencent Class under QQ Group, allowing users to register and take online courses on Tencent Class. Tencent Class is the company’s online education platform. It offers free and paid online courses covering foreign languages, overseas test prep and professional skills development. Leading education service provider New Oriental also launched a vocablearning app Joy Word this week. The company has currently produced more than 200 videos to explain the usage of the words. Users can watch these videos through the app.
Another Chinese Company, NetEase officially launched Youdao, an online education platform. NetEase is cooperating with reputed education organizations such as New Oriental and EF Education First to offer users high-quality online courses by leveraging its “leading IT technologies and strong distribution channels.” The company intends to further enrich its online education system by developing supplementary learning tools and materials such as learning apps and an Ebook offering. In addition, NetEase announced that the total users of its edictionary product, Youdao dictionary, had reached 400m, with MAU hitting approximately 60m. NetEase has already tested the waters in the online education field before this offering. In 2010, the company launched NetEase OpenClass, which offers free course videos prepared by faculty at renowned universities such as Harvard and MIT. It then launched NetEase CloudClass, which focuses on online professional skill training.