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Youdao, Inc.
Youdao sells AI-powered learning tools, smart devices, and online marketing services, mostly to students and consumers in China.
Youdao is a Chinese learning company that started life inside one of China's big internet firms and now sells AI-powered study tools, smart learning gadgets, and online marketing services. Its customers are mostly students and their parents in China, plus other businesses that pay Youdao to place ads.
The heart of the business is learning. Youdao runs a popular dictionary and translation app, sells digital courses, and makes smart devices like pens that scan text as you write and translate it. It also sells online marketing services, mostly advertising placed through its apps and through NetEase, its former parent. That marketing arm is a big revenue source, but it is lower-margin and lumpier than selling courses and devices. The company has been leaning hard into AI. It launched a large language model called Confucius and built AI features into its apps and devices, betting that smart tutoring will become the reason people pay. It also has a B2B arm selling AI tools to schools and businesses. Competition is fierce: Chinese edtech rivals like TAL Education Group and New Oriental Education & Technology Group are also racing to put AI into their products, and big consumer AI apps compete for attention.
Youdao is not a giant. It reported roughly 621 million yuan in net revenue for the second quarter of 2025, up about 19% from a year earlier, and posted its first operating profit in that quarter. The company is controlled by NetEase NetEase, which holds most of its voting power, and it listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019. The main risk is straightforward: China's education market is heavily regulated, and competition means Youdao has to keep spending to bring in students. Turning that into steady profit is the thing to watch.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026