Gaotu Techedu Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
June 2, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Gaotu reported 13.2% year-over-year revenue growth to about RMB 1.7 billion, with non-GAAP operating profit of RMB 13.8 million and non-GAAP net profit of RMB 41.4 million. Management said this reflects continued progress under its profitable growth strategy.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company said it generated first-quarter profitability for the second consecutive year, helped by improved operating efficiency and resource allocation. R&D and G&A expenses as a share of revenue declined year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: AI is becoming a core capability across curriculum development, content creation, tutoring, and internal workflows. Management believes AI is improving productivity and helping scale teaching and services more efficiently.
  • Positive Sentiment: Gaotu highlighted strong performance in non-academic tutoring and college/adult education, with gross billings and revenue in these newer businesses growing more than 15% to 20% year over year. The online portion of non-academic tutoring remained profitable for a second straight first quarter.
  • Neutral Sentiment: For the second quarter, management guided to RMB 1,578 million to RMB 1,598 million in revenue, implying 13.6% to 15.0% year-over-year growth. The company also said offline expansion is progressing in line with expectations, with further growth planned cautiously by city.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Gaotu Techedu Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Gaotu Techedu Inc. first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms. Catherine Chen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Catherine.

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

Thank you, operator. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining Gaotu's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. My name's Catherine. I'll help host the earnings call today. Gaotu's earnings release for the quarter was distributed earlier and is available on the company's IR website at ir.gaotu.cn, as well as through PR Newswire services. Joining the call with me tonight from Gaotu Senior Management is Mr. Larry Chen, Gaotu's Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bin Luo, Gaotu's Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Mike Xu, Gaotu's Head of Strategy, and Ms. Willa Yao, Gaotu Senior Finance Director. Larry will first begin with the quarter's business highlights and strategies, followed by Bin's overview of our operational performance. We will finish with a detailed discussion of our financial performance by Willa. Following their prepared remarks, we'll open the floor to questions from analysts.

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

Robin and Mike will address analyst questions during the Q&A session. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this conference call will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based upon management's current beliefs and expectations as well as the current market and operating conditions. They involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control and may cause the company's actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Further information regarding this and other risks is included in the company's public filing with the U.S. SEC. The company does not undertake any obligations to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law.

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP measures for comparison purpose only. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measure and reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please refer to our 2026 earnings release published earlier today. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. In addition, a live and archive webcast of this conference call will be available on Gaotu's IR website. It is now my pleasure to introduce our Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, Larry. Larry, it's yours.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

Good evening and good morning, everyone. Thank Thank you for joining us on Gaotu's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of you for your interest and support for Gaotu. Before I start, please be reminded that all financial figures discussed today are in RMB, unless stated otherwise. The first quarter of 2026 marks another important step in strengthening Gaotu's operational quality and long-term capabilities under our profitable growth strategy. Revenue grew by 13.2% year-over-year to approximately RMB 1.7 billion, with non-GAAP operating profits and net profit reaching RMB 13.8 million and RMB 41.4 million respectively. After excluding the impact of share repurchases, our cash position increased by RMB 69.7 million year-over-year, providing strong support for our ongoing investment in products, technology and talent to drive sustainable long-term growth.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

The value of education is not limited to short-term outcomes, but rather compounds over time through sustained engagement, consistent effort, and incremental progress. The same is true in business. What drives long-term resilience through cycles is not scale alone, but the organizational capabilities, product strength, and user trust built over time. With this in mind, while we remain focused on delivering near-term results, we are equally committed to advancing user value, organizational efficiency, and operational resilience across our business fundamentals. Next, I would like to walk you through our strategic priorities and key developments this quarter across five areas. First, profitable growth is moving beyond periodic results toward a more stable, sustainable operational capability. In recent quarters, we have continued to optimize our operating structure, focusing on balancing business health, operating efficiency, and long-term returns.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

Our mature online business has built robust, scalable capabilities across operations, teaching services, user engagement, and organizational collaboration, and continued to demonstrate resilient profitability this quarter. As we navigate a dynamic marketing environment in 2026, we will maintain our disciplined operating approach, improving resource allocation efficiency and execution precision, so that growth is built on an increasingly healthy and sustainable foundation. Based on our current business momentum and operating performance, we remain confident in delivering continued improvement in operational quality throughout the year. Second, AI is evolving from a mere productivity tool into a key fundamental capability powering Gaotu's scalable growth and organizational transformation. In recent period, we have progressively integrated AI across a curriculum development, content creation, operational collaboration, and learning services.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

Within our curriculum development system, for example, AI is enhancing our question banks and knowledge graphs, supporting teaching and formative assessment, and assisting teachers and curriculum teams with repetitive standardized tasks. Before that, we are weaving AI into our business workflows, operational processes, and organizational systems to serve as core infrastructure for operational decision-making across functional collaboration. On the user side, we continue to explore a spectrum of AI-powered product formats tailored to diverse learning needs, including learning tools, AI-enhanced one-on-one tutoring scenarios, and AI-integrated online large class courses. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in our core business, we are establishing a skill with AI framework that allows our best teachers, curriculum expertise, and proven service models to scale with greater efficiency, enhancing user experience while unlocking organizational and operational leverage.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

Third, user needs and learning experience remain the fundamental drivers behind our continuous product and service integration, and guide our efforts to strengthen talent development initiatives. On the teaching services front, we continue to optimize our feedback mechanisms and service framework. Take our online large class as an example. By deepening collaboration across instructors, tutors, and curriculum teams, we have formed a weekly feedback loop that captures student pain points, progress variations, and classroom feedbacks in real time. These learning insights flow directly back into course iteration, and service support, keeping content closely aligned with students' actual learning pace. At the same time, we continue to reinforce our talent pipeline. This spring, we expanded our campus recruitment and early career talent development efforts with campus engagement across prestigious domestic and international universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Tsinghua, and Peking University.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

By attracting individuals who are genuinely passionate about education and demonstrate the motivation and potential to grow with us, we are building a strong talent foundation to support our long-term capabilities in product innovation, teaching excellence, and organizational development. Our offline service offerings are progressing in line with expectations and are increasingly demonstrating their value in enhancing user engagement, building brand equity, and driving long-term value creation. For example, our offline educational services for college students now span seven cities, where we have developed durable service and engagement capabilities centered around college students' evolving needs. Our Zhengzhou Dream Center has spent the past year validating an integrated service model that brings together learning, daily life services, and personal development, achieving notably high utilization rates in the process. These enriched service touchpoints. We have also driven meaningful improvements in user satisfaction and brand awareness.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

We plan to extend this model to Wuhan in 2026. We will further expand our offline presence across all business segments, sharpening our service delivery capabilities to better align with these cohorts' diverse learning stages, growth objectives, and service needs. This will comprehensively elevate the learning experience, deepen user trust, and enhance brand value throughout the user's lifelong learning journey. Fifth, we believe long-term value goes beyond financial results. It's equally reflected in our ability to create lasting social impact for all our shareholders and society. Through efficient, disciplined capital allocation, we remain committed to sharing the benefits of the company's long-term development with our shareholders. As of June 1st, 2026, we had repurchased a total of 33.1 million ADSs for approximately RMB 704 million. We continue to invest in initiatives that broaden access to quality education.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

For example, Gaotu Foundation, the My AI Science Class project, has reached 33 rural schools across seven provinces and empowered more than 23,000 teachers. We plan to expand its coverage, hold regular on-site classes in Baise, and improve the accessibility of educational resources in underserved regions. We believe technology should not only improve efficiency, but also help bridge regional gaps in high-quality educational resources and create broader social value. Enduring success comes from unwavering commitment, and future momentum begins with the steps we take today. Looking ahead, we will continue to advance with focus and resolve, leveraging technology and innovation to expand the boundaries of education and further strengthening our business foundations through disciplined execution. We are fully confident in our capability to accompany and support students throughout their growth journey, creating sustainable long-term value for our users and our shareholders. Thank you very much, everyone.

Larry Chen
Larry Chen
Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Gaotu Techedu

This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now pass the call over to our COO, Robin, to walk you through the quarter's operational performance.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

Thank you, Larry, and thanks to everyone for joining our call today. I'm Robin. I will now walk you through our operating performance and business updates for the first quarter of 2026. Please note that all financial data are in RMB terms unless otherwise stated. Building on the progress we made over the past year in enhancing operational quality and organizational efficiency, we continue to advance our profitable growth strategy as we enter 2026. Notably, we achieved first quarter profitability for the second consecutive year, reflecting the resilience of our mature business as well as our continued improvement in organizational execution and resource allocation. R&D and G&A expenses as a percentage of revenue declined by 0.7 percentage points year-over-year, demonstrating ongoing gains in management efficiency and organizational collaboration.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

Deferred revenue totaled nearly RMB 1.8— up 24.1% year-over-year, providing clear visibility into revenue recognition in the coming quarters and laying a solid foundation for the steady execution for our full year business plan. The education subject to seasonal patterns closely aligned with students' learning cycles and course schedules. This year, the later timing of Chinese New Year shifted the delivery mix session and the spring classes across quarters. Our resource deployment is also calibrated to these enrollment windows and the business cycles. We believe that evaluating the company's performance over the first half of the year as a more complete operating cycle offers a clearer picture of our underlying trends. Looking at our current execution progress, our profitability and operational efficiency continue to . As we further optimize our product mix, organizational collaboration, and resource allocation efficiency, we remain optimistic about our full-year operating performance.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

Next, our business progress by segments. Learning services contributed over 95% of net revenues. Non-academic tutoring services and traditional learning services as our core segments, generated over 85% of our total revenues. In our new initiatives focused on online and offline non-academic tutoring services, gross billings increased by over 20% year-over-year in the first quarter, contributing more than 35% of total gross billings, while revenue grew by over 15% year-over-year, accounting for near 40% of total revenues. As enrollment additional capabilities mature, the online business within this segment maintained the first quarter profitability for the second consecutive years, underscoring strong product-market fit and operational resilience. On the business front, we continue to advance our learning service systems and strengthen educational product innovation, leveraging AI capabilities to build diverse learning scenarios that spark students' interest, sharpen critical thinking, and develop practical skills.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

We are also deepening our focus on localized curriculum development to make our teaching content more relevant and our services more tailored. By meeting user needs with greater precision, this effort collectively lays a solid foundation for enhanced learning outcomes and higher user retention. Our accounted for over 45% of total revenues and maintained a healthy growth trajectory during the first quarter. Our consistent investments in strengthening our teaching talent pipeline and upgrading our service system are gradually translating into tangible operating results. In particular, our one-on-one tutoring business recorded year-over-year growth of more than 20% in both revenue and gross billings, supported by professional capabilities, service engagement, and supply stability. For our AI is playing an important role in improving the efficiency and precision of personalized learning services.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

We continue to strengthen our end-to-end tailored service model across key stages of the learning process, including learning assessment, study planning, progress tracking, and performance feedback. Our AI-powered learning analytics and data enable tutors to more efficiently consolidate and analyze users' learning data, identify individual knowledge gaps and learning more personalized plans. This not only makes our service delivery more effective, but also provides students and parents with clear progress milestones, and next step planning, further enhancing overall users' experience and service satisfaction. On the channel front, we continue to optimize our channel mix by favoring the higher quality acquisition channels, while from private traffic and word-of-mouth referrals. The resulting improvements in user quality, conversion efficiency, and the retention rates continue to strengthen the operation fundamentals of our traditional business.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

Another key component of our learning services is educational services for college students and adults, while sustained its solid growth momentum this quarter. Gross billings grew over 15% year-over-year and contributed over 25% of total gross billings, with revenue accounting for 10% of total revenue. This performance reflects our continued focus on users' evolving needs, as well as ongoing optimization of product offerings, service management, and operational. Taking our educational services for college students as an example, building high-quality engagement throughout the user's learning journey has always been our key priority. We have structured framework to evaluate teacher-student engagement across interaction frequency, emotional connection, and professional academic support, improving the quality of tutor services and optimizing user experience.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

At the same time, we are embedding AI capabilities more deeply in our daily operations to streamline, standardize the workflows, and enhance operational enabling teachers to dedicate more time to higher value activities, such as personalized learning plan and regular mentorship. This quarter, gross billings and revenues for our educational services for college students grew by more than 20% year-over-year, with operating cash flow also improving year-over-year. Our civil service exam preparation business also did year-over-year growth in both revenue and gross billings during the quarter, with our chapter productivity continuing to improve, reflecting ongoing enhancement in user value and operational efficiency. Across all, we are advancing towards the same goal, driving gains in both business scale and operational quality through sharper understanding of user needs, stronger products and service relevance, and more efficient organization, collaboration and resource allocation.

Bin Luo
Bin Luo
COO at Gaotu Techedu

As we move towards this direction, we are our operational decisions and resource deployment, enabling each business to chart a healthier and more sustainable growth path at its respective stage of development. With that, I will now turn the call over to our Senior Finance Director, Willa, who will walk you through our financial data.

Willa Yao
Willa Yao
Senior Finance Director at Gaotu Techedu

Thank you, Robin. I will now walk you through our financial data. Please note that all financial data are in RMB terms unless otherwise stated. Our cost of revenue this quarter was RMB 514.8 million. Gross profit increased 12.9% year-over-year to nearly RMB 1.2 billion, with a gross margin of 69.5%. Total operating expenses during the quarter increased 16.1% year-over-year to nearly RMB 1.2 billion. Breaking it down, selling expenses increased 19.0% year-over-year this quarter to RMB 844.1 million, accounting for 50.0% of net revenue. Research and development expenses increased 5.7% year-over-year to RMB 159.0 million, accounting for 9.4% of net revenues. General and administrative expenses increased 12.9% year-over-year to RMB 164.7 million, accounting for 9.7% of net revenues. Income from operations was RMB 6.9 million, and the operating income margin was 0.4%.

Willa Yao
Willa Yao
Senior Finance Director at Gaotu Techedu

non-GAAP income from operations was RMB 13.8 million, and the non-GAAP operating income margin was 0.8%. Net income was RMB 34.5 million and net income margin was 2.0%. non-GAAP net income was RMB 41.4 million, and the non-GAAP net income margin was 2.5%. Our net operating cash outflow increased 73.6% year-over-year to RMB 828.4 million. Now turning to our balance sheet. As of March 31st, 2026, we have RMB 691.2 million in cash equivalents and restricted cash, along with RMB 2.1 billion in short-term investments and RMB 501.4 million in long-term investments. This comes to a total of nearly RMB 3.3 billion. As of March 31st, 2026, our deferred revenue balance was around RMB 1.8 billion, primarily consisting of tuitions received in advance. As of June 1st, 2026, we had repurchased an aggregate of around 33.1 million ADSs on the open market for nearly RMB 704 million.

Willa Yao
Willa Yao
Senior Finance Director at Gaotu Techedu

Before I provide our business outlook for the next quarter, please allow me to remind everyone that this contains forward-looking statements, which include risks and uncertainties that are beyond our control and could cause the actual results to differ materially from our predictions. Based on our current estimates, total net revenue for the second quarter of 2026 are expected to be between RMB 1,578 million and RMB 1,598 million, representing an increase of 13.6%-15.0% on a year-over-year basis. This concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready for the Q&A session. Thank you everyone for listening.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. For the sake of clarity and order, please ask one question at a time. Management will respond and then feel free to follow up with your next question. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Elsie Sheng with CLSA. Please go ahead.

Elsie Sheng
Elsie Sheng
Analyst at CLSA

Thank you, management, for taking my question and congratulations on the steady results. My question is about the offline business. We mentioned in our opening remarks that the offline business progress right now is in line with our expectation. Could you share more details on the latest update in terms of operation and also our plan for this year? I will translate to Chinese.[Non-English content]

Mike Xu
Mike Xu
Head of Strategy at Gaotu Techedu

Thank you, Elsie. This is Mike. I will take this question. Let me first start with how we think about our offline business. For Gaotu, offline is an important part of our long-term learning service strategy. It is not just another revenue stream. It can help us build deeper local trust, provide more direct service to student and parents, and create a meaningful second growth curve over time. Since we launched offline business, we have been build the capabilities needed to run it well. That includes a localized curriculum, local teams, experienced operating talents, and better data systems. The goal is straightforward. We want each city to have products that fit the local demands. We want our delivery quality to be consistent. As we enter 2026, we are starting to see these earlier investments translate into clearer operating results.

Mike Xu
Mike Xu
Head of Strategy at Gaotu Techedu

At the operating level, retention has been improving steadily, and some cities and products are already showing stronger competitiveness. Classroom utilization is also moving in the right direction. In cities where we have operated for a longer period of time, brand recognition and word of mouth are helping us scale more efficiently. In some markets, we are also seeing the brand equity from our online business to support our offline services. We also see user demand becoming more clear. Families with specific learning goals and high expectations for service quality are looking for strong teachers, localized products, and more attractive learning supports. This is Gaotu's long-term commitment to our teacher strategy and service excellence. Let's move to the summer enrollments. The offline business is progressing broadly in line with our expectation. As the enrollment is still going on, so we will provide further updates accordingly.

Mike Xu
Mike Xu
Head of Strategy at Gaotu Techedu

Based on the first five months, both gross billing and the revenue have been tracking with our expected range. We are seeing user demand and channel conversion gradually pick up. Based on the current progress, we expect offline billing and revenue to maintain relatively strong growth in the first half of the year. Going forward, we will continue to expand with discipline. We will closely look at each city, including user demand, classroom utilization, retention, teacher supply, and operating efficiency before we scale further. More importantly, we want offline growth to be built on a solid product quality, consistent service experience, and steady accumulation of local trust and reputation. That concludes my answer. Hope that can address your question, Elsie.

Elsie Sheng
Elsie Sheng
Analyst at CLSA

Yeah, thank you. It is very clear.

Operator

The next question comes from Yukun Zheng with CITIC. Please go ahead.

Yukun Zheng
Analyst at CITIC

Good evening, management. Thank you for taking my question. My question is about the cost control. We noticed that the company has achieved great R&D expense control this quarter. Do we have an outlook on the cost control and efficiency over the coming quarter? I will translate myself. [Non-English content]

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

Okay. To answer the question, yes, we are enjoying operating leverage for almost six consecutive quarters. We are having this really disciplined approach regarding resource allocation, our customer acquisition efficiency, as well as the whole organizational operation. One thing is that AI is playing a more and more important role in our daily operations, where not just in the operation front, but also in the customer-facing side, including content creation, and also improving our teaching services, et cetera. By empowering our teachers and children to have these technologies, we are really increasing their productivity per capita, which you could see in our online business margin. For our non-academic tutoring services, we are enjoying, it's our second consecutive quarter of gaining profit in the first quarter. Also our high school tutoring sectors are also gaining profit in this quarter.

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

For the operational front, it really empowering all the employees. We are actually deploying AI tools and AI agents to all of our employees to increase their productivity and improve their working efficiencies. We expect the operating leverage continue to show in the upcoming quarter. Yeah. I hope that answers your question.

Yukun Zheng
Analyst at CITIC

Thank you. It's very clear.

Operator

As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Catherine Chen for closing remarks.

Catherine Chen
Catherine Chen
Head of Investor Relations at Gaotu Techedu

Yeah. Thank you everyone for joining our call tonight. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact our investor relations department or our management via email at ir@gaotu.cn directly. You are also welcome to subscribe to our news alert on the company's IR website. Thank you very much again for your time. Have a great night.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.

Executives
    • Bin Luo
      Bin Luo
      COO
    • Catherine Chen
      Catherine Chen
      Head of Investor Relations
    • Larry Chen
      Larry Chen
      Founder, Chairman, and CEO
    • Mike Xu
      Mike Xu
      Head of Strategy
    • Willa Yao
      Willa Yao
      Senior Finance Director
Analysts
    • Elsie Sheng
      Analyst at CLSA
    • Yukun Zheng
      Analyst at CITIC
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