Thank you, Yuhua. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Sunlands fourth quarter and full year 2021 conference call. The year 2021 was full of uncertainties on both the macro and education industry levels, given these challenges we strengthened our focus on healthy steady growth to overcome obstacles that are prepared to capture opportunities ahead of us. More specifically, we strived to streamline our operations with a leaner organization and a disciplined cost control measures, continue to optimize our products mix to concentrate on demand global markets and spend efforts on improving services and acquiring students in a more efficient manner.
As a result of our clear strategic plan and a steadfast execution, we are delighted to close 2021 with record high net profit of RMB115.8 million in the fourth quarter and RMB212.4 million for the full year, delivering on our commitment to balanced growth and profitability.
Our improved profitability amidst the year-over-year moderation in gross billings and new student enrollments well reflects the effectiveness of our strategic direction and execution excellence.
Now let’s turn to the performance of each of our major course programs.
In terms of -- in professional certification and the skills programs, we believe there is still huge market potential on the demand side. On one hand, we have demand from working professionals who not only seek to stay competitive through job relevant or credential courses, but also increasingly take courses to complement their primary skills and develop new interests and hobbies.
On the other hand, these programs are also attracting students from a wide range of age groups who are looking for interest-based learning as part of a new lifestyle. To have these potential, we continue to focus on developing a diverse range of courses to fulfill the ongoing interest or robust learning demand during the fourth quarter. Thanks to our extensive course resources, our net revenues and gross billings for professional certification and skill programs in the quarter increased by 37.5% and 16.5% year-over-year, respectively.
Going forward we will continue to diversify our course catalogs and the theater [ph] of courses to a greater variety of learner groups.
As a breath and depths of our course offerings expand, we believe our professional certificate and skills programs will capture the increasing share of the market and realize continued growth. With respect to our post-secondary courses, as we strive to fine tune our product portfolios, we strategically shifted our focus toward master’s degree-oriented programs to capitalize on growing demand. Most of our students for these programs are working professionals.
As the job market becomes more competitive due to ongoing pandemic-related challenges, the increasing number of working age people are realizing the importance of postgraduate education. China’s 2022 National Postgraduate Entrance Exams received another record setting number of applicants jumping by 21.2% year-over-year to 4.6 million, while admission became increasingly difficult, as reflected by approximately 9% year-over-year decrease in 2021 of student’s rate, while pressure mounting on their career paths and competition for postgraduate education is intensifying. More applicants are turning to us to utilize our professional preparation courses to improve their odds of acceptance and thereby enhance their competitiveness at work, driving increased demand of master’s degree-oriented programs. Riding this tailwind, net revenue from our master’s degree-oriented programs grew 5.5% and 37.6% year-over-year for the first quarter and the full year, respectively. Annual gross billings and a new student enrollment for the segment also continued their upward trend in full year 2021, despite a year-over-year decline in the fourth quarter, due to the step up of our balance growth and profitability strategy. In 2022 we continue to leverage our highly capable terms -- in 2022 we will continue to leverage our highly capable teams’ experienced in MBA exam preparation to solidify our leadership position by expanding our course portfolio and optimizing our teaching and the service.
Regarding our STE programs, we remain committed to enriching our course offerings, improving operating efficiency and the services -- service quality during the quarter.
Given our establish effective teaching system and the results driving teaching methods we continue to deliver a high teaching quality and provide the premium courses to our students. Meanwhile, we took further measures to control spending and enhance our student acquisition efficiency, which in turn has driving high quality growth. Thanks to our effective cost control measures, our cost structure improved during the fourth quarter, with sales and marketing expenses, and general and administrative expenses down 44.2% and 7.6% year-over-year, respectively.
However, we continue to pump new blood into our costs strategy by maintaining our investment in new costs development, as evidenced by a slight increase in product development expenses of 0.5% year-over-year in the first -- in the fourth quarter. Furthermore, we remain focused on improving student acquisition efficiency by adopting more cost effective acquisition channels and leveraging cross-selling opportunities, while customizing sales and marketing solutions for different students group, despite their unique profile and needs.
We’re pleased to see our strategy already bearing fruit over the past three quarters and for the full year 2021. With a successful turnaround in profitability, Sunlands demonstrated both its resiliency and agility when navigating challenges amid 2021’s shifting industry landscape. In 2022 and beyond, we will continue to align our business operations with our strategic objectives to bring value to our students, employees, shareholders and the broader society. With that, I will turn the call to our CFO, Selena to run through our financials.