(Yicai Global) June 21 — Xiao Blackboard, a parent-teacher communication platform linked to Chinese tutoring giant TAL Education Group, will go offline by Aug. 31 amid falling user numbers following Covid-19 outbreaks.
The platform, which once had 40 million users, will stop accepting new account registrations in mid-July and terminate operations in a bit more than two months, the Shanghai-based company said in a statement yesterday, without specifying the reasons behind the decision.
Last month, speculation about Xiao Blackboard’s imminent closure was circulating online but the platform denied such rumors.
Xiao Blackboard was founded by Xiaoxin Information Technology in 2015, public data show. The number of users totaled 40 million as of early 2020, involving 1,200 schools, 70,000 teachers, and 1.1 million parents in Shanghai.
The Covid-19 pandemic had changed the landscape. In 2020, schools started teaching online amid the first waves of Covid-19 outbreaks. Xiao Blackboard tried to adjust to the changing situation by offering live-streaming services but in the second quarter of 2020, its user numbers dropped below 10 million, according to a report by Lanjing Education’s think tank.
Xiaoxin’s largest shareholder is Xinxin Xiangrong Education Technology with a 65 percent stake in it, according to corporate information platform Tianyancha. Xinxin, a unit of Beijing-based TAL, is owned by founder Zhang Bangxin, Chief Operating Officer Liu Yachao, as well as Chairman Bai Yunfeng.
Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi