Credu CEO, Bae Jae-keun. Ah-hoon/The Korea Herald

This is the 49th in a series of articles analyzing companies listed on the KOSDAQ, Korea’s secondary stock market loaded with tech firms. - Ed.

TOEIC scores have been one of most essential elements of job seekers’ resumes in Korea. But, both recruiters and job seekers are well aware that a high score of the wildly-popular English test does not necessarily mean that the test taker can speak English properly.

Credu, a local leader in the corporate e-learning field, sees a business opportunity in this growing need for a new English proficiency test.

“I believe oral proficiency testing will take off in the next five years, as more companies require results of such tests from job applicants,” Credu’s chief executive officer Bae Jae-keun recently told The Korea Herald.

Credu has been operating OPIc, or Oral Proficiency Interview-Computer, since 2007.

Bae expects a stream of profits from the test from this year on.

“Last year, we were still short of the break-even point because of the won-dollar exchange rates. But as the number of test-takers grows, we expect to see some improvement in profitability this year,” Bae said.

The number of OPIc takers will reach 155,000 this year, up from last year’s 93,000, the company predicted.

The OPIc is developed by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, or ACTFL, one of the top three language testing organizations in the world. Language Testing International is the exclusive licensee of the ACTFL, arranging the test around the world. With an ambition to grow the language test business, Credu purchased a 51 percent stake in LTI.

Korea’s English testing market is one of the largest in the world. Every year, millions of Koreans take TOEIC, or the Test of English for International Communication. At its peak, the number of TOEIC takers was close to 2 million, according to industry officials.

“We plan to expand our language test and education business, developing tests for languages other than English, such as Chinese or Spanish,” Bae said.

It is also preparing for the launch of OPIc Junior, which is designed for teenage test takers.

At present, its foreign language test and education business only accounts for about 20 percent of the company’s profits. The rest comes from corporate e-learning.

Credu started off in 2000, as a spinoff from Samsung Group. Since then, it has been the leader of the country’s e-learning field, providing an online education platform for major corporations wishing to train their employees. Samsung units, including the largest shareholder Cheil Worldwide, control about 61 percent of Credu shares.

Nearly 700,000 individuals, most of them belonging to the firm’s 5,000 corporate clients, subscribe to Credu’s online education programs.

The past two years have been tough for Credu, as well as other e-learning firms, as companies slashed their budget for staff training in the face of a severe market slump.

“As for Samsung, which is our No. 1 client, the drop was close to 30 percent,” Bae said.

At times of trouble, Credu chose to focus on its core competency. It sold off its loss-making student education business and decided to cement its leadership in professional education, strengthening customer relations with its corporate clients and developing quality contents.

“Being in the business since the start of e-learning in Korea, our core asset is the know-how that we have accumulated in serving our clients,” Bae said.

The company reported last week an operating loss of 125 million won for the first quarter of this year. Revenue dropped 28.3 percent from a quarter earlier to 11.2 billion won, while net profit rose 78.9 percent to 317 million won.

By Lee Sun-young   (milaya@heraldm.com)