GUANGZHOU, China, Feb. 25, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- YY Inc. (Nasdaq:YY) ("YY" or the "Company"), a revolutionary rich communication social platform, today announced it has launched the Company's newly-branded 100 Education dedicated education platform.
YY's 100 Education platform will initially offer a variety of exam preparation classes and programs to aspiring students through its portal, www.100.com. These programs will include TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) preparation courses, which will be offered on the YY platform free of charge to its users. In addition, YY will open an online enrollment channel, providing simplified access for its millions of users to participate in the courses.
Mr. David Xueling Li, Chief Executive Officer of YY, stated, "We're very excited to accelerate our education endeavors with the debut of our 100 Education branded education platform. Leveraging our powerful audio and video communication technologies with massive real-time hosting capabilities, we will provide comprehensive teaching tools that enable students to receive customized, real-time tutoring in highly interactive settings anytime and anywhere. Offering free TOFEL and IELTS courses, which are immensely popular in China, through our education platform will help significantly diversify and expand our user base. By bringing Chinese students a truly unique and interactive learning experience that is not possible in traditional offline education services, we believe our cost-effective online education programs have the potential to transform traditional means of learning. By offering such popular subjects that are increasing necessary in a competitive overseas higher education and job market, we believe that 100 Education will help us to further expand our user-reach and enhance the user experience on our increasingly diversified platform."
In conjunction with today's announcement, YY has established a stand-alone education department which consolidates its existing education services and resources onto the 100 Education platform. For the fourth quarter of 2013, there were more than 30,000 online education institutes and teachers providing lectures and online tutoring on YY's platform. The number of paying users in December 2013 increased by 340%, from the comparative period in 2012.
About YY Inc.
YY Inc. ("YY" or the "Company") is a revolutionary rich communication social platform that engages users in real-time online group activities through voice, text and video. Launched in July 2008, YY Client, the Company's core product, empowers users to create and organize groups of varying sizes to discover and participate in a wide range of online activities, including online games, karaoke, music concerts, education, live shows and conference calls.
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, the business outlook and quotations from management in this announcement, as well as YY's strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. YY may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about YY's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: YY's goals and strategies; YY's future business development, results of operations and financial condition; the expected growth of the online communication social platform market in China; the expectation regarding the rate at which to gain registered user accounts, active users, especially paying users; YY's ability to monetize the user base; YY's ability to continue attracting advertisers and offering popular online games; fluctuations in general economic and business conditions in China and assumptions underlying or related to any of the foregoing. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in YY's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and YY does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
CONTACT: Investor Relations Contact
YY Inc.
Anna Yu
Tel: (+86) 2029162000
Email:IR@YY.com
ICR, Inc.
Jeremy Peruski
Tel: +1 (646) 915-1611
Email:IR@YY.com
