The new normal - online education

Under the influence of Covid, schools across the globe have closed, leading to the rise of online education. The market size of the online education industry in 2020 has increased by 35.5%, worths RMB 257 billion (USD 39 billion).

Online courses were not the main source of income in the education industry in mainland China in the past. Excellent Children Education, an educational institution based in Beijing, established a digital course two years ago. Online course drove only less than 10% of the total income at the beginning while it has become the major source of income now.

The market competition of digital learning is fierce though. Online education platforms such as Zuoyebang, Yuanfudao, and Zhangmen start providing free online homework tutorial classes for students and successfully attract a lot of new users, becoming strong competitors of traditional education centres.

Meanwhile, Internet enterprises such as Tencent and Alibaba use online office platforms (Tencent Meeting and Ding talk) to provide cloud storage for teachers to store video lessons.

Although some teachers reflected that the result of offline teaching was better as students could ask questions in real-time, online teaching is expected to become a new trend. According to Oliver Wyman, they expected the market for China’s online after-school tutoring will maintain a compound annual growth rate of 30% to 40% in the next five years.

Smart innovation of wellness for WFH people

Working from home allows more flexibility on commuting to work while it also creates other concerns. Moving around less or participating fewer social activities may affect our physical and mental health. That’s why we have new technology to help us maintaining a healthy lifestyle while staying at home.

Moodbeam, a wearable bracelet allows you to share your emotions with colleagues. This bracelet can be connected to a mobile APP and Internet interface. There are two buttons on the bracelet: yellow and blue. Pressing the yellow button means you are good; blue means you are unhappy. Try wear and share your feeling during work and cheer up your colleagues when they are feeling down!

Smart cushion, a cushion that monitors vital signs, is invented to remind users to stretch while working. When we work at home, we sometimes forget to stretch, to take a break or to separate work from home. This invention serves as a reminder to exercise and relax after working for long hours. It doesn’t mean to “spy” anyone, but to encourage users to practise wellness while working from home.

Mobile game industry steps up in China

No doubt that Covid increased the number of hours spent on devices. According to Deloitte’s 2020 digital media trends survey, it found that one third of the interviewees subscribed to at least one video game during Covid.

Although the gaming industry is booming, the internet café is declining in China because of Covid. In January 2020, Wanyoo Esports Studio, one of the very first internet cafés in China, closed 1,000 stores across the country. Yi Zhuang, the Vice President of Wanyoo Esports Studio, said that the daily loss was around RMB 5 million (USD 771 thousand). 

More people are spending extra time playing games than before as they look for fun ways to spend their free time, especially on mobile gaming. According to GameAnalytics, the number of mobile gamers grew from 1.2 billion people to 1.75 billion in a month, marking an increase of 46% in 2020. Mobile gaming is popular as it is less costly, more convenient and simpler to play. Honor of Kings, an online battle mobile game published by Tencent, reached RMB 1 billion (USD 156 million) income in 2020.

Let’s look forward to the next mobile game trend in China!

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