BEIJING, June 16 (TMTPOST)— China’s education service giant New Oriental is gaining more popularity in a brand new industry, brining more hope for the transition from its core business amid the tutoring crackdown in the home market.

Source: Visual China

Followers of New Oriental’s the live commerce platform Oriental Selection, also known as Dongfang Zhenxuan, topped 10 million at Thursday’s afternoon, about ten times that of a week earlier. The platform’s fans just hit 1 million on June 9. In the past month, viewers visited Oriental Selection’s sales room jumped from hundreds of thousands to more than 10 million, even peaked at over 40 million, and its daily gross merchandise value (GMV) leapt up to RMB20 million (US$2.98 million), from only tens of thousands yuan, according to short video and  livestreaming tracking platform Xindou. Data from Xindou also showed 8.25 million Oriental Selection’s followers added in just seven days ended Thursday and the total fans kept going up.

Data underlined New Oriental’s e-commerce booming.  Oriental Selection’s e-commerce channel on the branded live stream platform of Douyin has gained about 1.6 million followers and generated GMV of nearly RMB18 million in three days from June 10. With bilingual livestream promotion, Dong Yuhui, a New Oriental English teacher who has taught 500,000 students over the past eight years, became a big hit on Douyin. Dong’s sales room saw more than 6,700 orders of peaches in a few minutes after he started the promotion last Friday morning alone.

The Wall Street also turned bullish on New Oriental. JPMorgan Chase analyst DS Kim upgraded its stock from neutral to overweight on Monday. Citigroup analysts, who give a "buy" rating on New Oriental, called the company’s online live broadcasting a bright spot and estimated it could achieve an annual GMV of more than RMB 7 billion if it maintained the current run rate.

Shares of Hong Kong-listed New Oriental Online settled more than 70% higher on Thursday, when it once hit HK$30.00 and suggested a more than 710% of rally from the start of the month.