On September 22, Kong Chao, founder of Chaoge Education, published an "Apology Letter to All Students of Fenbi Civil Service Exam and Chaoge Civil Service Exam," apologizing to Fenbi and all Chaoge students for infringement and announcing a series of compensation measures.
In response, Fenbi (ASX: 02469) said it accepted the apology. However, because Chaoge's profits were enormous, Fenbi demanded a compensation amount, which would be printed into mock exam questions and sold to students as a benefit for 1 yuan with free shipping.
A review found that the first round of this "war of words" between Fenbi and Chaoge began on September 16, when the former published an essay titled "Paying Tribute to Outstanding Peers."
From September 16 to September 22, Fenbi published more than ten such essays, covering topics including its self-described "pixel-level imitation" of Chaoge products, pointing out that its own products were used by a large number of companies and individuals, and arguing whether the civil service exam industry is profitable.
On September 24, Fenbi released another "king bomb" essay, saying, "Special thanks to Chaoge for making us reflect. No matter how they copied us, their courses are cheap, they have traffic, and therefore they have fans. We still have to genuinely bring prices down to gain everyone's recognition."
The consecutive essays not only brought Fenbi enormous traffic but also drove a phased recovery in the company's stock price.
On September 17, 21, 22, and 24, Fenbi's stock price rose 10.53%, 8.62%, 4.76%, and 4.69%, respectively.
However, Fenbi still faces significant performance pressure. In the first half of 2026, Fenbi achieved revenue of 1.248 billion yuan, down 16.33% year-on-year; it recorded a net loss attributable to shareholders of 184 million yuan, turning from profit to loss year-on-year.
After Infringement Dispute, Chaoge Bows to Fenbi
Recently, the public "mutual attacks" between Fenbi and Chaoge became a hot topic in the civil service exam circle.
On September 22, Kong Chao, founder of Chaoge Education, published an "Apology Letter to All Students of Fenbi Civil Service Exam and Chaoge Civil Service Exam."
In the letter, Kong Chao admitted to infringing on Fenbi: "In early 2026, in order to enrich teaching styles and provide diverse course options, Chaoge Civil Service Exam added a 'Practical Bucket' course on top of the 'Intensive Lecture Bucket.' Based on past teaching experience and to continue consistent teaching content, the practical teachers selected some Fenbi mock questions in the handouts. This indeed constitutes infringement."
Regarding the company's management dereliction of duty, Kong Chao said he felt "deeply guilty" and sincerely apologized to Fenbi. At the same time, he stated that comprehensive rectification had been launched, and in the future, handout development would be strictly regulated to prevent similar situations from recurring.
As for the "Practical Bucket" related products, Kong Chao offered compensation plans including removing and discontinuing related products across all platforms, refunding the "Practical Cool Brush" handout service fee, and reducing or waiving the "680 Family Bucket" related handout service fees.
Fenbi subsequently responded that it accepted Chaoge's apology. But because Chaoge had "used Fenbi questions extensively over a long period as course books for sales profit, and the amount is enormous," Fenbi hoped Chaoge would provide a compensation amount and then it would no longer make things difficult.
At the same time, Fenbi said, "No matter how much they compensate, Fenbi will print this compensation into mock exam questions, sell them for 1 yuan with free shipping, while supplies last, as a benefit for everyone."
A review noted that Fenbi also expressed approval in the letter of Sihai Education's behavior of displaying thanks to Fenbi on PPT slides and clearly stating that accuracy rates came from the Fenbi app.
Fenbi further stated that if other institutions heavily use its questions for handouts or even books, as long as they express thanks like Sihai and indicate the source in future use, it would no longer pursue the matter.
But Fenbi emphasized, "Chaoge must apologize, not for anything else, but because they used Fenbi's teaching research and then said Fenbi has no teaching research."
At the end of the article, Fenbi also called on the entire industry to establish correct values, guide a good industry atmosphere, compete more on teaching, research, products, and services, reject fan culture, and serve users wholeheartedly.
According to Tianyancha information, Chaoge Education's affiliated company Beijing Chaoge Hengxin Education Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2017, with Kong Chao as the actual controller holding 51% of the company's shares. Fenbi Civil Service Exam's affiliated company Beijing Fenbi Lantian Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2015 and listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023.
Fenbi's Barrage of Criticism, More Than Ten Essays in 7 Days
A review found that this verbal exchange between Chaoge and Fenbi can be traced back to September 16.
That day, Fenbi published an essay titled "Paying Tribute to Outstanding Peers."
In the article, Fenbi stated that in order to comprehensively fix the problems of recent years—"internal bureaucratic organization, bloated and inefficient, inaccurate and untimely grasp of user needs externally, and slow response"—the company planned to learn comprehensively from peers.
Among the moves, benchmarked against Chaoge Education's "National Day 7-Day Question Drilling Course," Fenbi would launch a similar product but at a lower price and with newer questions; benchmarked against peers' family bucket series priced around 680 yuan, Fenbi launched a similar product priced as low as 299 yuan.
The next day, Fenbi published a "Thanks" post, saying that its product priced at 1,380 yuan (original price 1,680 yuan, 300 yuan discount), a pixel-level imitation of Chaoge's National Day seven-day course (priced at 2,180 yuan), achieved unexpected results, selling more than 1,200 copies in one day.
In addition to thanking "peers for pioneering products," Fenbi also pointed out that Chaoge's claim that the product was not profitable was "crying poor," and said, "If sold at 1,980, a class could profit 200,000 yuan. Chaoge sold to more than 3,000 people, 20 classes, which is about 3 million yuan in profit."
On the evening of September 17, Fenbi published another essay titled "Who Is the Conscience of the Civil Service Exam Training Industry," using a breakdown of the profits of Chaoge's 680-yuan course to argue that the civil service exam training industry is actually profitable, and saying the reason for the recent frequent attack essays was that "we have been bullied in public opinion for years and are stifled."
Fenbi also said, "Coupled with poor management, weak administration, and severe losses, seeing peers make money and poach teachers makes us anxious and angry, so we have to launch various low-priced products to vent our resentment."
On September 18, according to Hubei TV's Economic Channel, Chaoge Education customer service said that its 7-day 7-night offline practical question drilling class was priced at 2,180 yuan, with a minimum of 1,980 yuan after using a voucher, and that it would not follow price cuts just because a competitor's price was lower, adding that it was inconvenient to comment on other institutions' products.
On the same day, Fenbi published another "Apology" essay, claiming it thought it was riding a hot topic and the course would sell well. As a result, after all the arguing, not only did the course sell poorly, but many students also withdrew, and it was criticized as "too low quality."
In the article, Fenbi said it would next do practical things and launch low-priced products including the "12.8 series courses plus handouts" and "100 sets of real and mock questions" at a cost price of 169 yuan.
It was originally thought this "self-exposing business war" would come to an end, but on September 19, Fenbi published two essays, "Statement" and "Response," pushing the "battle" to a new climax.
In those essays, Fenbi said it noticed that many companies and individuals were using Fenbi question bank explanations, mock questions, and handouts in formal courses. Individuals making a little product to earn a living could apply to the company for authorization, but for enterprises like Chaoge that had already achieved large-scale profitability, it would continue to pursue them in public opinion and legal terms.
After that, Fenbi successively published multiple essays including "Who Actually Suffered?" "Explanation," "Evidence of Chaoge Plagiarizing Fenbi," and "Business Competition and Civilization—Starting from the Business Competition Between Fenbi and Chaoge."
A review and tally found that, including "Fenbi's Response to Chaoge's Apology," Fenbi had published more than ten essays in just one week.
On September 24, after Chaoge apologized, Fenbi released another "king bomb" essay, saying, "Recently we noticed that after Chaoge plagiarized Fenbi, their course sales not only did not decline, but actually rose."
Fenbi said, "Here we especially thank Chaoge for making us reflect. No matter how they copied us, their courses are cheap, they have traffic, and therefore they have fans. We still have to genuinely bring prices down to gain everyone's recognition."
And this series of essays not only brought Fenbi massive traffic but also drove a phased recovery in the company's stock price. On September 17, 21, and 22, Fenbi's stock price rose 10.53%, 8.62%, and 4.76%, respectively. On September 23, Fenbi's stock price pulled back, falling 3.03% from the previous trading day. However, on the 24th, its stock price rebounded again by 4.69%.
Fenbi Fires "Low-Quality" CEO, New Leader Still Faces Performance Pressure
Behind the recent密集 flurry of essays is the performance pressure Fenbi currently faces.
In the article "Who Is the Conscience of the Civil Service Exam Training Industry," Fenbi also said bluntly, "Fenbi is like a fallen noble family. Our ancestors were once rich, but now we cannot keep up appearances, so we have to beg along the streets. Please, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, reward us a little. We are selling cheap."
Rewinding the timeline to 2023, after three consecutive years of losses, Fenbi finally reversed its previous performance decline: full-year revenue reached 3.021 billion yuan, up 7.5% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 189 million yuan, surging 109.03% year-on-year.
But the good times did not last. Two years later, in 2025, Fenbi's operating condition deteriorated again: full-year revenue fell 4.06% year-on-year to 2.677 billion yuan; net profit attributable to shareholders was 198 million yuan, down 17.3% year-on-year.
Entering 2026, Fenbi even recorded its first half-year loss since listing. During the period, Fenbi achieved revenue of about 1.248 billion yuan, down 16.33% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders turned from profit to loss, recording a loss of 184 million yuan.
Fenbi's financial report shows that the company's revenue is mainly composed of two segments: training services, and book sales and others. Among them, the training services business contributed 1.069 billion yuan in revenue in the first half, down 17.48% from 1.295 billion yuan in the same period last year; revenue from book sales and other segments was 180 million yuan, down 8.8% year-on-year.
In terms of gross profit indicators, in the first half, Fenbi's training services business achieved gross profit of 469 million yuan, plummeting 36.9% year-on-year, with gross margin falling from 57.3% in the first half of 2025 to 43.8%. The book sales and other segment achieved gross profit of 54 million yuan, down 15.13% year-on-year, with gross margin falling from 32.1% in the same period last year to 29.9%.
The simultaneous shrinkage of the two major businesses led to a sharp weakening of Fenbi's profitability. Tonghuashun iFinD data shows that in the first half of 2026, Fenbi's overall sales gross margin was about 41.83%, down 12.18 percentage points from the same period last year.
Facing performance pressure, Fenbi tried to build a new growth curve through AI. However, in the first half of this year, the AI question drilling system class generated only 42.2 million yuan in revenue, accounting for less than 4% of revenue.
At the same time, the increase in R&D investment caused by AI development further squeezed Fenbi's profit space. The financial report shows that due to increased resource investment in AI-related course development and other reasons, Fenbi's R&D expenses increased 22.8% from 108 million yuan in the same period last year to 132 million yuan in the first half of this year.
Beyond performance pressure, Fenbi's management also underwent dramatic changes. Due to huge public controversy caused by cursing students in a speech at Renmin University in June, saying they had "no ability except squeezing into the system and becoming a civil servant to muddle along," Fenbi founder Zhang Xiaolong resigned on July 8 as executive director, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board, citing the need to handle personal matters.
After Zhang Xiaolong's exit, Fenbi's subsequent voyage was helmed by veteran Sheng Haiyan. Interestingly, it was also from this time that Fenbi fell in love with publishing essays.
On August 6, Fenbi Civil Service Exam Education's official Weibo published "A Letter to Fenbi Students," using a "self-exposing family scandal" approach to fully reveal the company's decision-making mistakes in product pricing, marketing strategy, cost control, and other areas. Related topics once surged onto Weibo's hot search.
And in the essay published on September 19, Fenbi even said bluntly, "Fenbi has requirements for teacher quality. Even the former CEO was fired by the company for low quality."
Fenbi's subsequent development will continue to be monitored.
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