“We will expand our business in corporations to corporations (B2B) transactions and achieve over 20 billion won in operating profit in our first year of listing this year.”
Lee Kang-min, CEO of Day1 Company, attended a press conference for the initial public offering (IPO) on the 10th in Yeouido, Seoul, where he noted, “Corporations are now actively seeking the practical training content created by Day1 Company,” and said, “This year will be the year of significant growth.”
Day1 Company is a specialized provider of educational content for adults and is pushing for its public listing in the stock market after 11 years since its founding in 2013. The company gained popularity for its practical education, including artificial intelligence (AI) and programming, targeting office workers, already generating 100 billion won in revenue in 2022.
Lee noted, “We expect to achieve over 200 billion won in revenue this year,” adding, “We have officially implemented a 'one source-multi-use' strategy to provide the training content originally created for individual adult customers to corporations and institutions.”
The one source-multi-use strategy is expected to significantly improve Day1 Company's profitability this year. This approach involves partially adapting original content created for consumers to fit corporate training, which does not incur high additional production expenses.
Profitability has been pointed out as a significant hurdle for Day1 Company’s listing. Specifically, the company recorded an operating loss until the third quarter of last year but presented a valuation of up to 362.2 billion won using the price-to-sales ratio (PSR). PSR is an indicator that shows how many times the company's stock price is compared to sales per share (SPS), rather than profit.
Lee remarked, “I am already aware of the market's overvaluation concerns,” but noted, “We have steadily grown, and by expanding our content to B2B, profitability can improve.” He added, “We are in the process of reducing expenses by introducing translation and subtitling technology using AI.”
Day1 Company has also introduced a separate learning management system (LMS) to participate in education bids for corporations and government agencies. Until now, the company supplied some pre-produced training content to individual corporations without an LMS, but plans to participate in bids starting this year.
Lee said, “The sales of Multi Campus, the number one company in the domestic adult education market, come entirely from B2B.” He added, “As we have essentially started attacking the B2B market with the LMS launch, we expect to generate 100 billion won in revenue from B2B within three years.”
Day1 Company not only introduces 40 to 60 new lectures every month but also offers customized training designed for corporations. The company is particularly praised for its high-quality content, which is planned in-house. Most of the top 50 corporate groups and affiliated companies in the country are Day1 Company clients.
Day1 Company plans to accelerate its entry into overseas markets with the funds raised from its KOSDAQ listing. Beginning with the launch of its Japanese-language website in 2020, it has also entered the U.S. market, generating 13.5 billion won in revenue in 2023. A corporation has also been established in Japan.
Lee stated, “We entered the Japanese and U.S. markets by providing subtitled educational content and achieved 10 billion won in sales within three years of market entry.” He continued, “Starting this year, we plan to fully enter the Taiwanese market and aim for 50 billion won in revenue by 2026.”
Meanwhile, Day1 Company will offer 1,361,000 shares as new shares for public subscription during this listing. The desired public offering price range is between 22,000 and 26,700 won. The total amount of the public offering is estimated between 29.9 billion and 36.3 billion won. After the listing, the market capitalization is estimated to be between 298.4 billion and 362.2 billion won.
The company plans to conduct demand forecasting for institutional investors until today and finalize the offer price next week. General investors will be able to subscribe to the public offering shares over two days from the 15th to the 16th. If everything goes as scheduled, the company is set to be listed on the KOSDAQ on the 24th of this month.