Dear friends, good morning. Our presentation. Thank you for joining us for NetDragon Websoft Holdings Limited 2021 annual results presentation. Our presentation PPT will be broadcast on the live streaming platform. The PPT is also available for download on our company website at www.nd.com.cn under the Investor Relations tab in IR Website section. Before the start of our presentation, please allow me to introduce the management who are joining us today. Dr. Simon Leung, Group Vice Chairman and Executive Director. Mr. Ben Yam, Group CFO. Mr. Lin Chen, Group Senior VP. CEO of Promethean, Vin Riera. Now let's pass it to Dr. Simon Leung to host our presentation today.
Well, thank you. Good morning. Welcome to the NetDragon Metaverse. I'm kinda referring to the background that I have. The reason I do that is actually that's gonna be one of the theme today. Let's come to the agenda page so I can take you through a rundown of what we're gonna do today. The agenda page, the next one. I mean, you guys have seen the press release. I'm sure you studied the details. I'm gonna hit the highlights, and I'm gonna let Ben talk about some financials. More importantly is how the. If I kind of recap on our last earnings announcement, which is six months ago, we did talk about our shareholder value enhancement program.
I'm happy to say that we have done a lot. We're gonna do more, but Ben's gonna take you through the detail. Vin is gonna take us through, you know, some of the exciting progress that we've made in our education business. Of course, Lin Chen is gonna take you through a lot of the development in gaming, not only in 2021 but also looking forward. I'll come back and talk about the metaverse and why we believe is the right thing with you for us, and why we believe it's our future, why we believe there's a lot of synergy with both our education business and gaming. We open it up for our Q&A. Next page. I think the numbers speak louder, you know, than words.
I don't really need to explain it. We cracked the HKD 7 billion mark. You know, next page. Again, I mean, it's actually you know, kind of more of the same thing. Gaming continued to be our engine to generate cash. Again, Lin Chen will take you through the things that we have done and things we're gonna go do forward. I'm very happy with the progress with our education business, especially overseas, under Vin's leadership, and he's gonna talk about it and also give you some of the key wins that we have. I'll come back and really talk about how we see the metaverse and how we position ourselves.
We have a three-pronged strategy to go deal with that, with a little bit of detail. Of course, Ben's gonna go into a little bit more detail on what we have been doing in terms of value enhancement. With that, I am gonna turn it over to Ben, whom you should know very well by now. Ben.
Leung. First I'm gonna go over our financial performance for the year, and then I'll give you all an update on our progress in terms of capital market measures to enhance shareholder value. First I would like to highlight on this slide that we have achieved five consecutive years of growth in terms of revenue, operating profits and net profits. Our revenue went up by 2.3 times in the past five years. In terms of our bottom line, we are close to double our net profits since we turned back to profitability in 2018. This is achieved on the back of our success in both our gaming business as well as our education business, as we continue to consistently deliver exceptionally strong performance in these two business lines.
Next page, please. Okay, to quickly go over our income statement. Our overall revenue growth was 14.6% year-over-year, as we continue to see upward growth trajectory for our gaming business and also just very strong growth for our education business. Vin is gonna go through the details, but in short, we are continuing to see a very strong business momentum for our education business as we had 32.2% growth, revenue growth for the year, which is actually our highest growth in the past four years.
This is achieved on the back of very strong demand momentum for blended learning in K-12 classrooms around the world, and also, Promethean Solutions really fit right in in terms of the technology of choice. We also execute our business with strong cost discipline, as our OPEX items as a percentage of revenue all decreased, you know, year-over-year, as we continue to benefit from operating leverage. Okay, in terms of bottom line, we delivered in 2021, 27.4% increase in operating profits, 11.4% increase in net profits, and also 12.8% increase in EBITDA line. Next page, please.
Okay, on to the segmental financials. First on the education business, in addition to our strong top-line growth, I also wanted to highlight that, you know, we've been able to keep our growth margin stable at 30.8% as we were able to overcome supply chain issues, which have increased, you know, our materials and logistics costs, you know, quite a bit. Again, you know, Vin will go into the details on that.
Our core segmental loss also continued to narrow, to trend down, as we saw a reduction of 28% to HKD 412 million in 2021 as we continue to improve our bottom line, you know, while we continue to invest in our product and our technologies to capitalize on the blended learning opportunity. On the gaming business, we continue to achieve, you know, stable growth in both our top line with 6.1% growth and also our core segmental profits with 7.8% growth as we continue to enhance, you know, our OpEx structure to streamline our operations. Next page.
Okay, I'll move on to the next part of the presentation, which is our shareholder value enhancement, where I'll give a recap and also an update on our capital measures to maximize capital return for our shareholders. Okay, first of all, I would like to reiterate, you know, our commitment to enhance shareholder value with capital measures to return value, you know, back to our shareholders while preserving, you know, capital for us to invest in the future. We've really delivered on this commitment, you know, in the past few years by executing a series of capital market measures.
As you can see on this slide, the past five years, we've delivered a cash return in total of, you know, HKD 1.7 billion via share repurchase as well as our recurring dividends, interim and final dividends. Then, in February of this year, we paid a special 2021 interim dividends in the amount of $100 million, which amounts to HKD 1.43 per share. Then, in August last year, we also announced a three-year share buyback, you know, to repurchase, you know, our own shares, up to HKD 300 million.
That is also another one of our major initiatives as well. Our net cash position stands at HKD 4.8 billion at the end of 2021, which we believe will really put us in an ample, you know, very strong position to support, you know, future investments to drive our long-term growth. Next page, please. This chart shows that we've consistently been increasing our cash return to shareholders in the past few years as our annual cash return in terms of recurring dividends and also share buybacks have more than tripled, you know, since 2018.
The other thing is that I also would like to update you all that we've been following through on executing the three-year share buyback program that I just talked about. Since the initiation of this program back in August up to now, we've bought back a total of 16.2 million shares amounting to around $38 million. Next page, please. Okay, this is another chart to illustrate that on a per share basis, our recurring annual dividends have also increased significantly in the past few years from 25 cents in 2018 to 80 cents last year.
On an overall basis in 2021, our total dividends for the year, including the special dividend, amounted to HKD 2.23 per share. That actually represent approximately 94% of our total profits attributable to owners for the year. Okay. With that, I'm gonna, you know, pass the stage to Vin , who's gonna take us through the education business. Vin?
Great. Thanks, Ben. Good morning, everybody. My name is Vin Riera, and I am the CEO of Promethean. You wanna go to the next slide, please? On the next couple of slides that I'm gonna cover, we're gonna talk about the market growth and the addressable market that we see. This slide does a great job illustrating the growth that we've seen in the market consistently since 2017. You'll see a huge jump in 2020 to 2021, and that's reflective of the amount of funding that came into the market for technologies like ours, front of class technologies, interactive flat panels, lesson delivery software, as schools had to adapt to COVID and adopted hybrid learning and blended learning solutions. This growth has been in two key areas.
It has been the replacement of technologies that were in front of classroom, either interactive whiteboards or older interactive flat panels where people replaced their technology with newer technology, and then just sheer growth in new adoption of technology for the classrooms around the globe that do not have the technology. That, there's an opportunity for us to sell into that. If we go to addressable market and the market opportunity that we have in front of us, what this slide illustrates is the enormous opportunity again that we have in the replacement cycle, and in the new purchases of interactive flat panels, and front of class technologies.
If we take a look at the size of the market, and we assume that there's 42 million global classrooms and 82% of those classrooms today are not penetrated, meaning that there is no front of class device in there, you take an ASP of $2000, it gives us an immediate addressable market of $69 billion. The opportunity that we have in front of us is absolutely enormous. If you take a look at the chart, what you'll see is, if you look at the blue tones, those are, adoption rates of, either interactive flat panels or interactive whiteboards, within those given countries. That represents a replacement market for us.
If you're seeing adoption in those areas, that doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that those aren't areas that we can continue to win and get new business. That's what we consider to be our replacement market. If you look at the sheer amount of white space, that's the opportunity that we have to enter into classrooms to support front of class technologies with new adoptions. When we look at this slide, we're looking at an enormous addressable market of $69 billion. We're looking at a very ample replacement market that's toned with blue, and the white space is just sheer open territory for us.
When you think about what we can sell in today, the existing products that we have today, and again, the additional upside that we have by adding new products, whether our software or services, the future for us, there's a lot of green space in the future for us and ample opportunity for us to continue to grow. If we go to the next slide.
One of the things I've spoken consistently about is the importance of us remaining or keeping markets around the globe and making sure that we have solid footprints and solid relationships in those markets. I'm gonna highlight five markets here and just speak very quickly to some of the growth that we've seen and some of the key tenets to our success.
The U.S. market, again, we're number one in the U.S. market with 28.7% overall share. The U.S. market grew 71% in 2021, and Promethean grew 84%. We outpaced market growth in the market. I was very pleased to see that. We saw a huge adoption of our products being used for blended learning and remote instruction. We also saw teachers, school districts adopting our products that might have bought products a few years ago, but that technology was no longer current with the technology that the students were using and teachers are using. That's a consistent story that we first saw in the U.S., and we were able to capitalize it.
In the U.K., we are number one in the market at 23.1% share, and this is our fifth consecutive year of being number one in the market. We had strong growth of 42% in that market. An interesting trend that we're seeing in that market is we're seeing interest in adopting more than one interactive panel per classroom. We see this market growing not only in the replacement market, but additionally, additional opportunity to sell new equipment into the classroom. Within Germany, again, number one market, you probably don't remember from one of the previous slides, but German market share is only about 40%, which means only 40% of the classrooms in Germany have an interactive flat panel in the classroom.
That means that there's significant opportunity to continue to grow in Germany. We have 23% of the market. We're number one. It's now our largest company in EMEA. It's outpaced the UK from a market growth perspective, and there continues to be significant funding in that market, which is gonna allow us to continue to expand and grow. France, interesting market, in that we're number one. We have 23.8% share. It's the fastest-growing market with 31% CAGR on market volume from 2020 to 2023. It's the fourth largest market in EMEA. The trends in that market are a shift to interactive flat panels. It's primarily been an interactive whiteboard or projector market. That represents a huge opportunity for us because the replacement market is even larger for us in that market.
Then I'll just call out Iberia. We're number two in that market. We have a very balanced growth strategy with 20% year-over-year revenue growth. In smaller markets, and I'm just gonna call out Portugal here, there's other ones that we have situations like this too, we dominate in some of those markets. Portugal, as an example, we have 70%+ market share. So pretty large markets across the globe, and these top five countries represent 75% of our 2021 revenue. Next slide, please. 2021 was an interesting year in regards to supply chain and logistics. Ben touched on that, and I just wanna give a little more insight into it.
What we started off doing in 2021 had to be adjusted pretty quickly as market conditions continued to deteriorate. We quickly put in place plans to control our ASP, control our freight, and costs, our freight costs per panel, and then manage our gross margins. It was something that we worked on consistently throughout the year. Relative to ASP, we were able to increase our ASP 5.6% year-over-year to $2,287 a panel. That took a lot of effort. There's a lot of different initiatives in order to do that because we didn't wanna be inconsistent with our channel. We're very happy with that result.
On a freight cost per panel, this was another, significant, company-wide initiative that was focused on throughout the entire year. The market for freight increased 6.8%, and our freight costs only increased by 2.8%. We outpaced the market by controlling costs on freight. Overall gross margin was relatively stable given the challenges that we had in the market last year. Gross margin was 32.8% versus 33.8% in 2020. We're able to control a lot of variables in the business that change constantly throughout the year. Next slide, please.
Now I'm gonna talk about, the next few slides are gonna talk about customer wins, and there's gonna be some key takeaways on each one of these slides. Relative to this slide, there's a lot of different names on here, and there's a lot of different examples, but there's three takeaways that I wanna give.
The first one is we win large districts, and this is consistent. If it's large and it's complex, it's something that we do really well at. Three examples here are New York City Department of Education, Miami and Chicago Public Schools. The second thing I wanna point out is we win in mid-sized districts and small districts, and I didn't put small districts up here, but we do win in an awful lot of mid-size and small districts. We're adept at winning in large districts.
We're adept at winning in small and mid-sized districts. The other thing I wanna point out is we're adept at winning at departments of education. Two examples are New South Wales Department of Education and Puerto Rico Department of Education. The key takeaway here is within the K-12 market, we compete and win. It's not an area that we're trying to find a niche to improve in. It's an area that we're trying to find a way to grow holistically and continue to grow holistically. If we go to the next slide, this is the first of two examples. I'm often asked why we win.
Aside from a very strong brand, aside from a loyal customer base, aside from lesson delivery software, reliability, over-the-air updates for our products, I just wanted to pull out two examples and share with everybody why we won. The first one is Lee County School District in the U.S. Really the winning factors for us is what they needed more than anything was comprehensive training and a solid support and a professional development plan with the panel and with the lesson delivery software. This is a market that does, that will pay for value and they will pay for additional services and support.
What we did is we partnered with the district to understand what they were looking to accomplish, the timeline that they were looking to accomplish their goals, and put a solution together that met the needs of more than just providing a front of class display with an award-winning ActivPanel. It made the transition from the incumbent super easy. That's always a challenge for schools that are leaving an incumbent to a new one, and we made it as easy as possible for them. The next example is similar, but brings into a little bit more texture. What Cidari Multi Academy Trust in the U.K. needed was, what was most important to them was seamless integration with their existing EdTech across all environments.
It had to be compatible with Google software and devices, and they needed to have training on it. One of the things that we were able to do is when we went in there and listened to what they wanted to accomplish when we worked closely with the channel partners and try to roll this out, again, we were able to put together a comprehensive solution for them that helped them feel very confident about the success of a rollout and making sure that their end users, ultimately the teachers, were able to operate seamlessly in the classroom. Just two more overall examples on sometimes just listening to what the customer is looking for and taking our experiences and helping them implement what they wanna implement that feels very custom to them is a winning solution.
If we go to the next slide. We won awards in 2021. That was great because 2021, we continued to have V7 in the market. We made multiple updates and upgrades to that product. If you had bought V7 early on in its lifespan, you got to see some improvements over the life of that product. We received awards from Tech & Learning, from BETT, from the AV Awards and EdTech. This was both for ActivPanel and for our lesson delivery software. Still very well recognized across the market as a market leader and a thought leader in this space. Then the final slide I'm gonna talk about, what's happening in our MoE business. MoE is our Ministry of Education business. We also sometimes refer to it as countrywide rollouts.
There's three examples that. First one we've heard a lot about consistently on every single call is Egypt. We have a very strategic relationship with Egypt. We spend a lot of time with Egypt understanding what they're looking to try to do and try to be the best partner as possible to help them accomplish their education goals. Just very recently, we signed a definitive contract with Egypt for 94,000 Promethean panels. We're thrilled with that. We're thrilled with that commitment, that business commitment that we have to them and they have to us. We're working with them on a model solution in 2022, and that includes content and metaverse opportunity. Simon's gonna talk a little bit about the metaverse after me today.
In Thailand, we were able to get a pilot of 3 regions completed, and it had quantifiable increase in learning outcomes. Really successful pilot there. We're moving toward a paid pilot and a solution for them that we could scale nationwide in 2022. The last MoE opportunity that I'm gonna share with you today is in Ghana. In September of 2021, we signed an MoU with Ghana to develop a sustainable nationwide blended learning platform for the 9.3 million K-12 students. That's a project that's underway, and we're engaged with, and we're excited to be able to share updates with you. That's it from the education business. I'm now gonna hand it off.
谢谢。大家好，我是林晨，很高兴为大家介绍网龙游戏2021年的业绩。好，下一页。好，那可以看到说今年我们网龙游戏的业绩获得了一个比较好的成绩，那这个也是网龙游戏在持续的发展战略下的一个成功的验证。那其实在过去几年，我们在IP跟我们擅长的品类上的持续投入，包括在海外游戏上的持续投入，也获得了一个很好的回报。大家看到我们的旗舰IP，我们的魔域跟征服两大IP在今年的收入都再上了新高，那同时我们在海外的收入上也同比获得了增长。同时我们可以看到我们网龙的游戏的收入是一个健康稳定发展的态势。那从这两个，一个是我们的付费用户数，让我们的付费的健康程度都能体现整个的发展的。下一页。那我们的游戏收入主要来自于两个平台，一个是PC平台，还有一个是手机平台。那大家知道说手机的游戏市场是一个相对稳定而且有比较高，我们在手机，在PC方面的收入也超越了行业的平均值，这也证明我们在IP的魔域、征服跟英魂之刃上的持续投入在持续获得回报。好，那随着PC市场它相对一个稳定的部分，那我相信说在IP上的持续投入也会推动我们的游戏的PC上的收入继续持续增长。而在手机收入上的话呢，大家可以看到，我们的现有的手游的收入持续在放大，那同时我们有新游戏系的上线，也推动了手机游戏的收入增长。所以说呢，在PC端跟手机端同时获得收入增长，也是今年我们一个很大的成绩。好，请下一页。好，那重新帮大家回顾一下我们网龙游戏的核心IP。好，那可以看到，网龙游戏是持续在MMORPG这个品类上持续地进行深耕，在这个品类下我们有魔域跟征服两大IP。那大家也知道，MMO品类是一个相对有高用户粘性的品类。好，那在此基础上，我们同时也有高DAU的MOBA品类，有我们的英魂之刃IP。那与此同时，我们也不断在开拓新的游戏品类跟新的IP。像我们的终焉誓约，就是一个基于二次元题材的，2021年也进行了上线。好，下一页。好，那接下去呢，跟大家介绍一下我们整体的魔域IP的成绩。那大家可以看到，过去七年我们的魔域IP的收入都获得了持续的增长。好，那首先呢，这跟有几个原因，那我觉得第一个是MMO这个品类。好，那MMO品类是有具备比较高的用户粘性，那随着我们在魔域IP上的持续投入，那这些的投入也产生了成效。好，那大家看到说我们的收入增长是由两个维度上推动的，那第一个就是我们的活跃用户的稳定跟持续增长，那第二个呢，是我们在付费上的一个通过内容，提高持续的内容产出来不断扩大我们的付费能力。好，那在去年一年，我们也很高兴看到我们的，无论从我们的活跃用户还是我们的付费额上都得到了增长，也促进了我们的魔域IP在去年一年的持续的增长。好，下一页。好，那在过去以来，我们是非常重视我们能够持续推出高质量的内容的能力，那一个体现呢，就是我们持续在每年为玩家提供大规模的资料片。好，那在PC端的话呢，大家可以看到我们去年两个重大的资料片的更新也确实获得了不错的成绩。好，那在我们的现有用户的粘度跟老用户的回归上都取得了比较好的成绩，保持了PC的魔域，它生态上的稳定跟持续的付费。而在手机端的话呢，我们推出了自制资料片，那大家知道说手机端的内容消耗的频率是比PC来得更快的。好，那随着高质量的内容产出，同时结合内容营销跟买量，我们显著地降低了用户买量的成本，那这可以帮助我们持续导入新用户来维持手机游戏的用户生态的稳定，那这也在去年获得了比较好的成效。好，下一页。好，那在整个IP联动跟持续的内容营销上，在这件事情上，其实我们已经做了很长的时间，也积累了很多的成功案例。那随着我们的，如何去了解用户喜欢的内容，包括IP联动、持续的内容营销跟品牌建设，那每年我们都会持续不断地推出这些成功的案例，来保证我们用户社区的活跃，并且在我们的用户新增跟这个用户付费上都持续得到了回报。下一页。好，接下去跟大家分享的一个比较重要的就是，我认为说游戏行业还是一个很重要的内容行业，那所以网龙魔域的IP我们也是持续地去寻找我们内容的一个风口，内容发展的一个趋势。那目前看来，我们认为国潮这个内容的趋势，包括跟魔域IP的碰撞，是一个非常好的案例。好，从去年上半年的资料片到下半年的资料片，我们持续地将魔域IP跟山海经这个题材做了结合。好，那从这两个题材的结合也碰撞出很好的内容，也获得了用户非常好的认可。那未来我们也会持续在好的内容跟产出上持续地进行投入。好，下一页。那这里的话呢是，大家可以看到是我们今年整个魔域系列的生肖幻兽。那生肖幻兽呢，在我们整个魔域IP里是一个很重要的玩法，那同时呢也是我们一个很重要的付费点。好，那在这个魔域IP上，我们看到高质量的内容包装我们的付费，而玩家愿意为高质量的付费，这个趋势是越来越明显的。好，那通过我们很好的内容的生产，内容的包装，那我们看到在五年的生肖年兽的销售收入上，我们第一次突破了一个亿，那也说明说我们在持续在内容投入跟内容付费上的趋势，跟把握得到了一个很好的回报。相信在未来，在高质量的内容产出上，也不断能够推动我们的收入的增长。同时内容付费也是保持一个MMO游戏社区良性健康成长的一个很重要的要素。好，下一页。那在去年的话呢，我们在我们的魔域IP的建设上，也有了一个首次的推动，尤其是在我们的动态漫画上，去年十一月，我们的动态漫画首次在快手上上线，也获得了年轻人的很多的认可。而在2022年也是比较重要的一年，我们会持续在舞台剧，在微短剧，在剧本家上面持续会推动我们IP建设的内容，而这些面向年轻人的，用年轻人喜欢模式的IP内容，我相信也会不断地持续扩大魔域的IP的粉丝数，同时建立魔域IP在年轻人里面的一个很好的形象，推动整个魔域IP的持续的健康的发展。下一页。好，再接下去是我们的征服IP。那征服IP的话呢，我们会保持整个我们在MMO品类上的积累，在稳定的内容输出下保持我们自己的节奏。同时去年征服IP其实在海外也得到了比较大的增长，那我们拓展了一些像菲律宾、美国的一些国家，同时也摸索出了一些很好的推广策略。那今年我们会在更多的国家去推广我们验证成功的这些策略。好，那因为征服主要还是以一个PC端为主，那它最大的特点是说它建立渠道的时间会相比手游更加的长，但是呢它的回报也是相对比较长线的，它具备很强的壁垒性，那这个也是保证我们整个IP长线获利的一个很重要的关键。好，下一页。那接下去是为大家介绍我们的终焉誓约这个IP。好，那大家可以看到，这个是网龙游戏在二次元的新品类，在年轻用户，包括玩法创新上一个很重要的尝试。好，那当然虽然公测期我们遇到了一些，克服了一些困难，那最后的成绩我们看到还是非常不错的，达到了我们的预期。首先从用户接受度上来讲，这个IP相对来讲获取了一百万以上的月活，同时它有一个很大的亮点，就是它的次留，那55%以上的次留在业内是一个非常高的成绩，那也证明了我们的在新游戏方面的，无论从美术题材跟玩法创新，包括二次元的一些营销，获得了新用户的认可。那在新的一年，2022年的话，持续的内容投入跟海外版本的推出，将是这个IP很重要的工作。好，下一页。好，那目前来讲的话呢，终焉誓约这个品类跟IP来讲，是在我们看来是一个适合全球化的题材和品类。同时目前跟我们跟海外发行商的沟通，那发行商也给予我们很大的信心，那认为说我们的产品是具备海外发行的很大的潜力。那在近期我们会对最终的这个合作合同做一个确定，那希望在2022年这个产品也会在海外上线，给我们带来收入的增量。好，下一页。总结来看，我们看到在2022年我们有持续稳定的MMO品类的IP的持续的增长，同时我们有终焉誓约在海外的发行和征服IP在海外的拓展，好，那当然还包括了一些新游戏，尤其像魔域手游2的上线，将会为我们在2022年的收入带来增量。好，同时呢，我们会积极把握元宇宙、开放世界和区块链游戏的机会，去抓住这些内容的乐点跟风口，希望说能够在2022年和未来的几年，网龙游戏我相信都可以获得很好的健康发展。以上，谢谢大家。
[Foreign language]. It's actually very timely that Lin Chen ended up talking about the metaverse. I'm going to come back and really, you know, at a high level, kind of tell everybody what we are doing and what we have been doing, and what we are going to be doing in the area of metaverse. First of all, we believe that it is really in our wheelhouse. We see it as a big MMORPG game with a lot of new technology and content into it, and that's our DNA. We've been doing this, you know, all our life. We're going to continue to do it. If I may, I will kind of put our initiative into three different buckets.
The first one is actually Lin Chen alluded to blockchain games. I'll talk specifically about a game that we have launched kind of and then we've and our plan about it. By the way, that's not the only title that we believe that we can take advantage of blockchain technology and the gameplay. That's why I put the two kind of boxes in one bucket, which is blockchain games. We are very excited about it. We believe we'll be successful. New verticals is actually I will probably describe it as adjacent verticals that are very close to what we do. The first one we're looking at definitely is what we call edu metaverse.
We do believe the concept of social learning will be coming and will be here to stay. With the big user base that we have, whether it's Promethean or Edmodo, we believe we are in a prime position to take advantage of that. We're in more than just planning stage. We have a lot of initiative going on right there, but I can't give you the detail. For sure in our next earnings announcement, we'll give you a lot more detail. Because the whole metaverse area around blockchain is a new area and it's moving really, really fast. We do believe that we need to stay in the forefront of the technology, the business model and all the innovation.
The fact that we have quite a bit of kinda like cash on our hand, we want to use it in the best way that we can. In addition to enhancing shareholder value, we decided to take a more maybe lack of better term aggressive investment approach in the whole blockchain area. We're gonna be investing in you know any of this vehicle that will allow us to number one look at the deals and then we can have good returns plus we can really be in the forefront of all the new innovation whether it's technology or business model. The other one is actually we'll be doing some partnerships.
By the way our investment is not only just on software. It could be hardware that will enhance our experience in the metaverse. The other one is actually real partnerships and people that we can work with and get us into and expand into the metaverse universe much quicker. That's really the highlight. We have started doing that in the second half of 2021. We're gonna speed it up in 2022. I can guarantee you'll be hearing from us very soon. You don't have to wait until the next earnings announcement. Next page, I'm gonna give you a little bit more specific on the game that we have started to do. If you remember, towards the end of last year, we had launched an NFT project with Neopets.
Just to remind everybody, Neopets, through the gaming community, it's all about virtual pets. It's been around for many years and has a user base of 150 million players that they have played the game. You know, we're talking about millions MAU. We are taking that into the crypto area because if you look at the game itself, it's actually the battling, the raising the pets, dressing them up is actually all got the elements in a blockchain game. The thing that will differentiate us from all the other games are, number one, is the first major IP that is actually going crypto, going blockchain, I should say. It's a proven gameplay.
It got a proven community. What we're gonna be doing is actually play and earn, not play to earn. It's actually a lot. I think a lot of people are very familiar with one of the games which is around pets, but that's a play-to-earn game. They appeal to a very different audience base. We decide to stay with free to play premium and also play and earn, so we can appeal to a much wider audience in gamers. We have a whole timeline developed. We announce the game.
We're gonna be revealing more about progress is actually this week to the community and then also leading up to alpha launch, I think sometime in June or July timeframe in the Q2, end Q2, beginning of Q3 timeframe. Okay. With that, I'm gonna turn my attention into the outlook for 2022. It's actually, I'm gonna be very brief and let's go to the next page. It's actually both Ben and Vincent talk about our future in our business. We're gonna have a very balanced growth strategy on gaming both domestic and overseas. You know, also on the content. Really, I mean, Neopets is not gonna be the only blockchain game that we'll be doing.
In terms of education, we're gonna have two areas that we'll be very focusing on. One is really take advantage of the tailwind that we have in terms of blended learning. I'm not gonna repeat what Vin has told you. We just have to reiterate, we are confident in 2022 and onwards. You know, the way we're doing it is actually we're getting a lot of sockets, if you will, into all the classrooms. On top of that, we can deploy software and content over our learning solution. That leads very nicely into next point.
A lot of people think Promethean is a hardware sale, but if you guys listen to Vin carefully, it's actually one of the big differentiation for us is our lesson delivery software. So on top of that we can start monetizing. So that's how the whole game plan all along. Last but not least is the previous two slides that I talked about, not only we will continue our metaverse initiatives, but we're going to ramp it up, we're going to be quite aggressive, but of course in a very prudent kind of way to take us into a new growth area. With that, thank you so much for the patience. So I'm gonna open it up for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Leung and all the management. Now it's time for our Q&A section. You are welcome to raise questions in two ways. First, if you would like to raise questions through the teleconferencing system, you may press star one on your phone keypad and our operator will bridge you through. Second, if you would like to raise questions via our webcast platform, please click the question mark on the screen and type your questions in the Q&A box. 感谢梁博士以及各位管理层。现在我们即将进入问答环节，欢迎各位以下两种方式提问。如果您希望透过电话会议系统提问，请按星一键，我们的操作员将为您接入。如果您希望透过网络直播平台提问，请点击左方问号，并在问答框架内输入您的问题。We welcome questions in both English and Chinese. 我们欢迎各位以英语以及中文提问。Let's welcome our first question. 我们现在接入第一道问题。好的。Our first question comes from BOCOM，明奇。我们第一条问题来自于BOCOM Group的明奇。问题是这样的，我们看到教育业务亏损率大幅收窄，亏平衡的时间表呢？第二个问题是，我们如何看待2022年游戏业务的增长，新游戏上线的计划以及端游方面增长的预期。
Let me take the first one, so either Ben or Lin Chen can do the second one. 刚才你讲是那个教育，就是这个其实我们一直都是跟大家介绍我们那个教育，就是因为我们有进展，所以我们的亏损一定会收窄。这个我们现在还是在 balance，我们是这个投入跟我们这个利润的问题。有一部分，我们的，特别是那个普罗米修斯里面，我们的进展是非常好，所以我们已经有盈利，但是我们也投入了一些在无论是在线教育的那个领域，或是在那个 metaverse 的领域，当然我们的那个目标一定是会赚钱的，就是就看时间的问题，我们一定有 timetable，但是那个市场也发展得很快，所以我们现在在做一个平衡。好，所以那个目前来讲，我唯一可以说的一定会往一个赚钱的方向来走。第二呢，这个亏损一定可以收窄，但是时间表抱歉是目前不可以透露。好，这个游戏的问题是那个 Ben 还是那个 Lin Chen 回答，Lin Chen 吧，好不好？
那我先从业务上回答，如果从财务来讲，可以请Ben来补充。
Right.
首先来讲的话，就是端游的市场，刚刚提到是说它是相对非常稳定的。那在2022年我们其实并没有看到什么新的大作的出现。我相信在端游方面，随着我们的持续的内容的产出，我们端游的收入至少能够保持继续的增长。那在手游的部分的话，我刚才其实提到了，今年有几个维度。第一个是我们在终焉誓约在海外的发行，那肯定是一个很大的增量，那我们预期希望说海外的收入能够超过国内。好，那第二个是说我们的新游戏的部分，那其实也在提到的魔域手游2，那这个也是我们旗舰的IP游戏，好，那我们希望它在今年能够上线，那这有大的增量。那当然其他还有一些是在海外的，比如说Ben、Simon提到的区块链游戏上，那它不受版号的限制，那如果这些产品的上线也会加大我们在手游方面的收入。那在预期方面，那可能请Ben来补充。
好的，谢谢，谢谢您刚才，我觉得你已经讲得很好了。我补充一下，就是具体来讲的话，我觉得我们在2022年我们整个游戏的增长的话，从端游的角度来说，我觉得我们应该会是in line with这个market growth，我觉得这个我们是非常有信心的。然后呢，就像刚才Lin Chen提到，就是我们在海外方面的那个进展，这个我们，特别在下半年，我们会开始希望能够去发布我们这个终焉誓约的海外版本，所以那个的话呢，会给我们在下半年时候的话开始带来一个新的增长点。所以我觉得，今年来说，我觉得不管是topline还是bottomline，这个我们都是非常有信心，我们在游戏里面我们会继续保持一个稳定的增长。
后来补充一句，在那个区块链游戏，现在区块链在2022年，但是怎么去影响我们的那个PNL呢？老实讲我都不清楚，目前那个，那个可能Ben也可以就是add some color，就是因为那个在会计上怎么去影响我们的PNL，这是现在好像还是我们在做一些比较深入的研究，好。
是的，因为区块链这个我可以补充一下，就是因为我们打算launch我们的新的区块链游戏，就是刚才Simon提到的那个Neopets 的那个游戏。其实我们那个，因为大家也知道那个metaverse游戏，其实它那个本质应该是一个decentralize，就是那个去中心化的一个ecosystem，所以我们实际上我们会往那个方向来走，就是当我们去设计这个游戏的时候，而我们这个，从公司的角度，我们的那个benefit，我们的那个economics的话，有可能更多会是在那个token的一个value。对，那这个可能会是一个比较新的一个形态，从整个会计处理的方式方面。所以我相信这个，可能在下半年我们越来越接近我们launch我们游戏的时候的话，我们会有更多的那个clarity，更多的那个清晰度，在这方面，对。
Ben，是不是可以简单地讲一下，比如说我们也投入了一些加密币，但是虽然我们赚了钱，但是我们现在也没有办法去显示出来，在我们的PNL，对不对？
是的，没错。这个其实我们作为 part of 我们那个 cash management 的一个部分，因为我们的 net cash 还是比较充裕，所以其实我们那个，一段时间前，我们是投了这个，一定金额的，那个以太币，就是那个 Ethereum。那其实到现在来说的话，我们那个账面的话其实是那个赚了不少，但是我们，因为会计的那个账，那个 Ethereum 的那个增值那个部分去 mark up，对，但是我们都知道这个已经是 mark up，一定是增长了很多，所以这个也可以说是我们其中一个 unrealized 的一个 gain，我们没有在我们的 PNL 里面的话去反映。对。
对，我讲的比较细一点，就是说我们一定，我们其实对那个区块链游戏我们充满了一个信心呢，但是有可能在短期之内你看不到在那个PNL有那个影响，因为会计现在还是在做catch up，是怎么去处理那些token的那个问题吧。Okay, next question。
感谢各位。Thank you. Our next question comes from CICC, Kai. 我们下一道问题是来自于CICC的Kai。问题是这样的，魔域玩家的典型用户画像是怎样的呢？目前东南亚地区游戏玩家他的变现潜力如何呢？还有就是海外疫情会不会影响网龙教育产品的一些需求以及交付的速度？谢谢。
[Foreign language: 林晨，你先回答那个魔域的问题。] Vin, actually the next question is for you. The question is, does the COVID situation affect our education business? I think the answer is yes, I'm sure you have a good answer on that one. Okay, Lin Chen is going to answer the first question.
第一个问题关于魔域的典型用户跟用户画像。魔域的用户是比较下沉的，相对来讲的话，在二三线的城市的比例，是比市场的均值更高。魔域的用户有一个特点，第一个，它的用户忠诚度比较高，它在整个IP上的用户粘度是比较高的。第二个的话，它在付费方面，有一批比较忠诚的而且有比较强的付费能力的大额玩家。同时，它在用户的年龄层上来讲，我相信其实比我们想象的更加乐观，它的用户年龄层还是十八岁以上的成年人为主，我们的未成年的比例在魔域IP上是非常非常少的。这个其实在用户构成上是相对比较健康的。所以我们的用户画像，从它的稳定性跟付费能力也能够支持我们的长线的收入的增长。 第二个问题是关于东南亚的用户的潜力。我个人认为，我们其实终焉誓约我相信会在东南亚取得比较好的成绩的。另外一个原因是说东南亚用户在题材方面是有一些选择性的，我们看到能够发到欧美系的一些游戏题材跟东亚的题材还是略有不同的。我们目前从市场上来看，东南亚用户的付费能力跟潜力还是在逐渐地增长，因为从市场分析来讲，它还是属于一个GDP比较高速增长的一个范围，我们也看好这部分的市场跟用户的潜力。谢谢。
Vin, over to you.
COVID did have an impact on our education business. We first saw it in 2020, when schools started to go remote. I think the long-term effects are what's most interesting in that the funding sources that were put in place to allow teachers to teach remotely have carried forward. As students have gotten new devices and teachers have gotten new devices, and they've invested heavily in different EdTech solutions, software solutions, it's become mainstream for them. What that's done is it's kept them on the latest technology and continuing to upgrade their technology. That's not a trend that I see changing in the next few years.
霍老师，我就是补充一下，其实那个对我们绝对是有影响，但是这个好的影响，不是坏的影响，那个因为是我们一直都是在推那个概念，叫做blended learning，我忘记中文叫什么了，就是你就可以随时随地都可以在学习，你无论是在家里，在教室里面，或者是在移动的时候，其实那个是我们一直在推。疫情呢，就把那个趋势就加快。所以你看到我们为什么在2021、2020年呢，两年我们的增长都是创记录的，在那个教育，就是特别是在海外那方面，这个是蛮重要。那当然，那个我也要补充一下，其实疫情呢，也有给了我们一些挑战，刚才Vin也讲过，就是对我们整个，而不是区块链，这个供应链是有一个比较大的挑战，但是因为我们是准备得比较好，然后我们那个团队也蛮有经验，所以我们可以把那个挑战，一些问题解决掉。所以那个为什么我们增长会比其他的公司比较快，就是第一个就是我们教授的队伍，我们客户的那个关系特别好，然后呢，刚才Vin也讲了很多，都是我们的客户，可能你对那些名字不是很了解，但是我们很多的在美国，特别是客户，那个所谓的区，那些district是挺大的，所以我们会这个增长会这么比较快。譬如说我们在Miami，佛罗里达的，那个在纽约，在Texas，那些都是我们大的客户，所以这个，我们是为什么有信心在未来两三年都会有非常好的增长，都是这个原因。另外当然是我们有一些比较大的项目，刚才Vin也讲了，我们爱奇艺1,000多这三年大概接近十万块的那个大屏，这个也是我们做得比较好的。谢谢。
谢谢各位的回答。在下一条问题之前，如果您希望透过电话会议系统提问的话，可以按星一键，我们的操作员会为您接入。If you would like to raise questions through the teleconferencing system, you may press star one on your phone keypad and our operator will bridge you through.
Ben是有，他那个电脑有点问题，所以没有他的图像，他应该听得到的。
是的，我在，我在。
好的，谢谢您。好，接下来——
可能 Ben 要 upgrade 他的那个 laptop。
是的，是的，是的，不好意思。
没问题，谢谢Ben。接下来下一条问题是来自广发证券分析师的问题。看到公司不错的成绩，我们是如何展望游戏教育业务2022年的一些收入和利润增长的呢？这方面可不可以给到一些感觉。第二个问题呢，是我们目前储备了哪一些游戏，还有呢，就是我们预期它的表现会是怎样的呢？第三个问题是目前教育业务我们最大的增长驱动因素是哪些呢？第四个问题是国内教育业务比较长，要不您，我们先回答这三个，然后我再问另外两个，因为还有两个问题后面。
我可不可以拜托，就是不要问那个六个问题，因为其他人也要，也没有机会可以问问题，就顶多就两个了好不好？那个，I don't even remember all the answers。但，林晨你先回答那个游戏的问题，然后我叫那个Vin来谈谈那个教育，然后Ben后来就讲一讲我们今年那个outlook，好不好？
好，OK，那我先来回答游戏方面的。那，首先在2022年的收入部分，其实刚才我跟Ben有做过介绍。那刚才问到说储备了哪些游戏跟预期的话呢，我可以再补充介绍一下，因为我们目前的游戏可能我们是聚焦在MMO这品类，MMO、MOBA跟新拓展的卡牌品类。因此呢，在整个的魔域的IP下，无论是魔域手游2还是下一代的魔域的PC跟口袋版本，那也都是我们在储备跟研发中的项目。好，那在MOBA赛道，那其实我们目前已经开始了英魂之刃2的下一代的MOBA产品的研发。好，那加之在卡牌的部分的话呢，其实我们储备的会更多，那包含了三消加的融合创新的产品，包含了放置的产品。好，那这些呢，都是我们会在未来两年之内推出的产品。那相信说，聚焦于我们现有的品类，我相信说能够在明年到后年能持续有新的游戏上线，能带来不错的一个成绩。谢谢。
Remind me 那个，那个教育的问题是什么？我忘记了。
教育业务最主要的增长驱动因素是哪些？ The main growth drivers for the education business?
呃 ， 我 - 我 以 为 那 个 Vin 已 经 讲 过 了 。But it's okay. So I mean did you get the question? The main-
What I heard-
...force of our growth. I thought you answered the question, you know previously, but go ahead and repeat.
Yeah, sure, let me touch on it really quick. One of the impacts of the pandemic was that a significant amount of money came into schools to upgrade their technology, and we've seen growth, traditional growth in the market.
Going back to 2017 at about 8.5% a year. In 2021, we saw 23% growth in the market, and a lot of that has to do I think the funding increases the adoption of new technology, faster adoption of new technology, faster replacement cycles, faster adoption of front class displays in markets that haven't traditionally had that is what's fueling that. It's one of those things where they started buying it, and then once they started buying and incorporating more technology in their classroom, everything had to be upgraded. We have benefited from that, and we will continue to benefit from that.
I think the other thing you guys have done is that you also optimize our revenue by selling our higher grade model. You may want to touch on that a little bit too.
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a great point, Simon. One of the things that we've seen is with the applications on how the products are being used in the classroom. We have two levels of panels. We have a great panel that people can buy and use, and then we have one with additional storage, additional memory, additional functionality.
What we found is, we saw a big shift with customers that wanted the higher level of performance, that wanted the additional storage because the use case had changed, and especially if they were attaching a camera to it, or that there was more interaction that the teacher was having, the students were having with their one-to-one devices with the panel. Our premium product was something that met their needs a heck of a lot better, and it was something that we saw the market drawn to, and we just worked to fulfill that demand.
Oh, thank you, Vin. Go ahead.
好的，下一道问题，这个补充问题，就是我们教育业务跟这个游戏业务在2022年的收入跟利润增长的一些预期。
We don't give forecast. 我们不给预期，所以不好意思。
好的，没有问题。好，那在进入下一道问题之前呢，我再提示一下各位投资者，就是如果您希望通过电话会议系统提问的话，请按星一键，我们的操作员会为您接入。If you would like to raise questions through the teleconferencing system, you may press star one on your phone keypad and our operator will put you through. 谢谢。Thank you. 我们接下来也是下一道分析师的问题，他是想请问一下呢我们国内教育业务目前的展望是怎样的？然后我们监管对于国内业务是否有任何影响呢？第二呢，也是想请Simon谈一谈我们区块链现在项目的一个投入情况，我们预计我们对于区块链的一些预期管理这方面的一些问题，谢谢。
我先讲这个国内的教育情况，因为我们不是做课后服务，所以对我们来讲是没有很大的影响。我们现在投入是在，比如说在我们101 PPT，还有跟各个地方的政府来做合作，做一些在我们的pool，我们的客户群在里边，无论是To C或者是To G。这个是为什么刚才我在讲这个是投入跟利润的一个平衡的问题，因为教育里边我们在中国还是在一个投入期，所以我们现在是建我们的客户的user base，所以我们现在里边还是focus在跟政府合作，然后也是在做一个To C的项目，这个是在101 PPT。 在区块链呢，刚才其实我都已经讲了，我们会做蛮多的事情，投入多少的金额呢，我目前不会讲，但是我觉得你很快就知道我们每一个项目我们会投的资金会大概是多少。我们觉得区块链是一定是以后的一个方向，无论在游戏或是在教育里边，所以对我们来讲投入在区块链是很合理，也是对我们以后的发展是非常好的。 在业务发展呢，教育的元宇宙会大部分是在一个投入的时间，然后把我们整个元宇宙把它建好，因为我们其实客户都有了。譬如说我们在埃及，基本上它所有的学生都是在我们的Edmodo的平台，其实我们把Edmodo平台跟我们的教育元宇宙一连起来了，已经是一个蛮大的元宇宙，那么其实也有一些功能可以加进我们教育的元宇宙。 游戏呢，其实我们都已经基本上宣布了，就是Neopets的游戏，我们会往前推。刚才林晨也讲了一些，我们看Neopets以外，我们还有什么IP会在区块链里边。刚才我也请Ben讲过，其实我们投入进去怎么去我们的进展，怎么在我们的PNL表现出来，目前我觉得我们都不是太清楚，因为会计的标准还没追得上，Ben也没有一些comment在里边。
其实我刚才也介绍了一下我们大概目前的那个对会计的那个想法。我觉得可能有一点的话值得提的，就是我觉得大家，这个也看到目前这个区块链游戏在市场里面的话，他们的一些valuation，他们做到一些融资的一些规模，我觉得大家都是都看得到的。所以我觉得，我们，不管这个会计准则最后是怎么样，我觉得我们那个如果游戏成功，which我们是很有信心，那我觉得我们应该还是这个整个economics的value肯定会是还是回到我们网龙上市公司这边。
好的，感谢梁博士，感谢Ben。由于时间的关系呢，我们现在会进入最后一道问题。Due to the time constraint, we would like to welcome our last questions. Okay, 我们的最后一道问题呢，是来自于Jeff。Our last question come from Jeff. It's very impressive performance on Promethean in 2021, especially on the share gain and the supply chain issue mitigation. There are three questions on Promethean. What is your expectations on inflation this year? Its gross profit margin? The second one is can you talk about our roadmap on software and expectation on monetization potential? And the third would be what is your visibility on product demand this year in our core markets? Thank you.
Okay, let's go with my man Vin.
I'll do this without giving any guidance. We have seen inflation impact us in 2021. As we take a look at 2022, we're gonna take the best practices we have in 2021 and bring it forward into 2022. We can behave differently to mitigate how we buy and when we buy and when we source our different components. There's a tremendous amount of things that we can actually do that could impact what we're paying and ways to control our costs. That being said, we can't control fuel prices, we can't control some container prices. We're gonna continue to manage that very tightly.
Just like we did in 2021, I don't see it being any worse in 2022 and we're able to manage through that. From a roadmap standpoint, there are some things that you're gonna hear about, but you're not gonna hear about them today. You're gonna see some releases that will come out at the end of Q2 and into Q3. So you'll hear it on the August earnings call. We have had great success with our ActivPanel V7 product that we launched in 2019 with multiple upgrades. That continues to have incredibly strong demand because we've been able to keep that product, we've been able to do upgrades, over-the-air upgrades and software releases on that product that have really enhanced the use case.
We are excited that there are some announcements that we'll have in the back half of the year on our hardware offering. What we wanna do is make sure that we're fulfilling the demand in the month, and then introducing new things as far as that goes. Relative to software investments, we've got incubated teams working on software applications for the product, not only in the panel but in closely adjacent markets. What we're looking for are experiences that enhance the use case for the teacher. Again, I think I'll be prepared to talk about those, not on this earnings call, but most likely on the next earnings call. You'll have to wait for that.
That gives you a little. You can read through the lines and pick up a little bit on some of the things that we're working on. As far as visibility for this year, I'm gonna pull this directly out of Futuresource, which is a third party that reports on the growth in this market. They see, you know, they see growth in the education market in 2022 and 2023. They see growth in other markets coming up. I see long-term opportunity in this market. I think I had my second slide that I presented today, and that's what I'd probably point you back to. It showed the adoption of interactive flat panels, interactive whiteboards, and then the white space in the market, and the total addressable market size of $69 billion.
I think I would steer you to that to reinforce my confidence in the visibility that we've got opportunity. We continue to have opportunity in front of us.
Yeah. Let me add to that. We are very confident on 2022. Just for you to know, I talk to Vin a lot, but we all talk about our vision, you know, for the next few years rather than, like, the, you know, reading between the lines of our confidence level. One I have to really give Vin and his team a lot of credit is because they're generating positive cash flow, net positive cash flow. We can do a lot of things other competitors cannot do. I mean, he very casually mentioned about buying at the right time and all that stuff, but that's very important to maintain, number one, the supply.
Number two, we can maximize our margin. It's actually, as far as I'm concerned, Promethean is actually we have all cylinders going. The market is with us. We have a great operation team. We have a great go-to-market team, and we have a strong leadership up on top. A long-winded way to say we are very confident in 2022. The thing he was talking in code a little bit is a lot of exciting services, SaaS services is actually being in the works right now. It's actually that's the kind of a topic that Vin and I talk about rather than the day-to-day, whether we're gonna make the number this quarter type thing. Okay? I think that's a very good question.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Leung. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Lin Chen. Thanks, Vin. Today, once again, I would like to thank you all for joining us. If you would like to communicate with the management further, please contact us for one-on-one meeting arrangement. Thank you, and we wish you all have a great day. [Foreign language: 谢谢梁博士，Ben，林，林总还有]