Online tutorial company Zhangmen expands business

Online tutorial company Zhangmen announced plans to expand its business from traditional courses to arts course on Thursday.

The online one-on-one tutorial provider for K12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) course Zhangmen has set up its sub-brand Peilian to upgrade itself from offering traditional courses such as Chinese, math and English to a wider selection of subjects, including arts.

The company also launched a second sub-branch Shao'er, which focuses on the training of children's studying skill such as concentration.

Zhang Yi, CEO of Zhangmen, announced that the registered users on Zhangmen have crossed the 10 million mark, while its teaching staff strength in hundreds of cities has topped 10,000.

"Due to the encouragement from the country level, the online education sector will continue to grow at a steady pace," said He Xin, a senior analyst of Nielsen who closely follows the industry. "By the end of 2018 we expect the education sector to top 300 billion yuan ($43.2 billion)."

"In 2016 the niche markets started to emerge, and the K12 sector is what the parents are most concerned about," she said.

The application of artificial intelligence is also what Zhangmen has been working on, as Zhang said the company would continue to combine AI into education.

"The value of AI is to make it applicable into education, to increase the quality of class and the study efficiency of student," Zhang said. "So far we have applied AI into emotion monitor and class syllable planning."