Leveraging the achievements and advantages of NetDragon's education technologies and products, while integrating with the platform resources from RYB Education, this strategic cooperation aims to provide early childhood education platforms and products, and also to explore the online-to-offline ("O2O") model of early childhood English education. In addition, NetDragon plans to exploit its know how and experience in gamification of education products to offer upgraded and enhanced versions of RYB Education's family and parenting course contents, in order to increase competitiveness. Moreover, this cooperation in early childhood education will carry out at both ToB and ToC levels.
RYB Education is a leading early childhood education service provider in China, focusing on early childhood education for children from infancy to 6 years old. Through direct operation and franchising, RYB Education currently covers approximately 500 kindergartens and 1,300 play-and-learn centres across more than 300 cities nationwide, providing early childhood education guidance and services to cumulatively millions of families. With its high-quality early education platform and products, RYB Education's number of students and registered users has continued to rise. Furthermore, the integration of online and offline education contents and resources by making use of RYB Education's diverse set of education services and products, and NetDragon's technical and professional expertise in online education, will result in more possibilities for early childhood education in China.
Dr. Simon Leung, Vice Chairman of NetDragon and CEO of NetDragon Huayu Education, commented, "We are delighted to enter into this strategic cooperative partnership with RYB Education. We believe this partnership aids the Company in establishing a solid foundation in the early childhood education market. The Company will leverage its advantages of content resources and its expertise in fields such as informatization of education as well as the integration of education and technology, to collaborate with RYB Education. We firmly believe that we can share strong synergies through NetDragon's powerful digital curriculum and online course solutions, as well as RYB Education's strong resource base of students, teachers and parents. We also hope that our collaboration will lead to innovation and equality in education."
"We are excited about this strategic relationship with NetDragon, a strong advocate for education innovation in the internet industry. By leveraging NetDragon's pool of established online learning platforms and digital learning technologies, such as VR and AR, we are well-positioned to develop competitive early childhood education products and platforms suitable for online education," said Ms. Yanlai Shi, CEO of RYB Education. "There will be strong synergy between our extensive student and parent network and NetDragon's digital curriculum, tools and solutions. We look forward to working closely with the NetDragon team and believe we will bring about more educational innovations and make early childhood education services and contents more flexible and accessible, better serving the needs of parents and children."
About NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited (HKSE: 0777) is a global leader in building internet communities with a long track record of developing and scaling multiple internet and mobile platforms that impact hundreds of millions of users. These include China's number one online gaming portal, 17173.com, and China's most influential smartphone app store platform, 91 Wireless, which was sold to Baidu for US$1.9 billion in 2013 as the largest Internet M&A transaction in China.
Established in 1999, NetDragon is one of the most reputable and well-known online game developers in China with a history of successful game titles including Eudemons Online, Heroes Evolved and Conquer Online. In recent years, NetDragon has also started to scale its online education business on the back of management's vision to create the largest global online learning community, and to bring the "classroom of the future" to every school around the world. For more information, please visit www.netdragon.com.
About RYB Education, Inc
Founded in 1998, RYB Education, Inc focuses on the quality early childhood consultations and services of children from infancy to 6 years old and families, covering approximately 1300 play-and-learn centres and 500 prestige kindergartens across China. On 27 September 2017, RYB Education (NYSE:RYB) was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
For investor enquiries, please contact:
NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited
Ms. Maggie Zhou
Senior Director of Investor Relations
Tel.: +852 2850 7266 / +86 591 8390 2825
Email: maggie@nd.com.cn
Website: ir.netdragon.com
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