BEIJING, Aug. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ --China Distance Education Holdings Limited (DL) ("CDEL", or the "Company"), a leading provider of online education in China focusing on professional education, reported today its unaudited financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2012 ended June 30, 2012.

Third Quarter Fiscal 2012 Business and Financial Highlights:

Commenting on the results, Mr. Zhengdong Zhu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, "In the third quarter, we continued to focus on enhancing our students' learning experience and results and on executing our growth strategy. However, as anticipated, our results were impacted by the delayed timing of the Accounting Professional Qualification Examination, or "APQE", and CPA exams. The delay has shifted the timing of enrollments and a certain amount of GAAP revenue from the fiscal third quarter into the fourth quarter and the next fiscal year. We believe the impact from the delay is primarily a matter of timing dictated by external factors, and does not reflect on overall market demand for our products and services, which remains strong. Our results excluding the examination timing issues remain healthy, as we achieved revenue growth towards the top of our guidance range while enrollment and average selling price ("ASP") remain strong across most of our other accounting and non-accounting verticals.

"Going forward, we will continue to focus on integrating cutting edge online and mobile learning technologies in our delivery model and on our content and platform development to continue to enhance our students' learning experience and attract new students to our programs. We expect to continue to grow at a healthy pace for the remainder of this year and into fiscal 2013."

Ms. Ping Wei, Chief Financial Officer of CDEL, commented, "Due to the fixed nature of a significant portion of our costs and expenses, the delay of certain APQE and CPA revenue from the third quarter to later quarters had a material impact on our net income as compared to the prior year period. We believe that this impact is due to examination timing issues which are temporary in nature, and as a result, we expect to deliver increased profitability in later quarters."

Fiscal Third Quarter 2012 Unaudited Financial Results

Net Revenues. Total net revenues from continuing operations for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 were US$13.1 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 8.1% from US$12.1 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2011.

Online education services net revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 were US$9.3 million, an increase of 4.6% from the third quarter of fiscal 2011. The increase was a result of increased revenue in accounting test preparation courses and healthcare courses. Such increase was partially offset by decreased revenue from APQE and CPA courses due to delayed timing of examinations, and accounting continuing education courses, revenue recognition for which was impacted by the delayed timing of course completion by students.

Net revenues from books and reference materials for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 were US$1.1 million, an increase of 10.1% from the third quarter of fiscal 2011, after reallocating the online course services deliverable of US$0.5 million, which are included in online education services net revenues.

Net revenues from others increased by 21.2% to US$2.7 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 from US$2.2 million in the same period of last year. The increase was a result of increased revenue in platform production services, offline business start-up training courses provided by Zhengbao Yucai and other offline supplementary training courses. Such increase was partially offset by decreased revenue from magazine content production services and courseware production services.

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China Distance Education Holdings Limited Reports Third Quarter 2012 Results