BEIJING, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- ATA Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAI) ("ATA", or the "Company"), the leading provider of computer-based testing services in China, announced today that it has successfully delivered HR Select exams to People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC) and to Zheshang Bank.
On September 26, ATA delivered to PICC the first nationwide underwriter and claims handling exam, involving more than 20 subjects, including Auto Insurance Underwriting, Auto Insurance Claims, Property Insurance Underwriting, Engineering Insurance Underwriting, Hull Insurance Underwriting, Shipping Insurance Underwriting, Agricultural Insurance Underwriting, Liability Insurance Underwriting, Casualty/ Health Insurance Underwriting, Energy and Aviation Insurance Underwriting and Claims Handling. The PICC exam was successfully delivered to 19,000 test takers in 230 sites across 55 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, among others.
Separately, on the same date ATA delivered an HR Select exam to Zheshang Bank covering 54 subjects to 2,000 test takers in 53 test sites across 12 cities in China. As the 12th national joint-stock bank approved by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, Zheshang Bank highly values the ethics and professional skills of its employees and is committed to their training and performance appraisal. In 2008, Zheshang Bank adopted the computerized examination services provided by ATA. Following the success of the first exam, Zheshang Bank increased the number of subjects and doubled the number of test takers for this edition of the exam. ATA also provided exam operation, exam room monitoring and data analysis services.
"We are very pleased to announce the successful delivery of these exams under our HR Select assessment offering," commented Mr. Kevin Ma, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ATA. "This represents an important milestone in the development of our business, and we expect it will lay the foundation for us to continue to grow our exposure to private sector test sponsors as we diversify and expand our service offering and client base."
HR Select is a proprietary application, developed and engineered by ATA using leading international standardized assessment tools to test 150,000 different job skill sets, covering several areas of competency, including IT, foreign languages, finance, accounting, management, and legal. ATA has modeled over 600 job positions to create a test-item bank containing millions of test questions. Since launching this initiative in March, the Company has successfully created over 10,000 trial accounts. These registered companies cover more than 12 provinces in China, mainly in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen areas, and represent over 20 industry verticals, including real estate, IT, manufacturing, consumable products and financial services, which demonstrates a very strong interest by companies in China for this type of service.
About ATA Inc.:
ATA is the leading provider of computer-based testing services in China. The Company offers comprehensive services for the creation and delivery of computer-based tests based on its proprietary testing technologies and test delivery platform. The Company’s computer-based testing services are used for professional licensure and certification tests in various industries, including information technology, or IT, services, banking, teaching, securities, insurance and accounting. ATA’s test center network comprised 1,951 authorized test centers located throughout China as of June 30, 2009, which the Company believes is the largest test center network of any commercial testing service provider in China. Combined with its test delivery technologies, this network allows ATA’s clients to administer large-scale nationwide tests in a consistent, secure and cost-effective manner. ATA has delivered over 30.7 million tests including 20.6 million billable tests since it commenced operations in 1999, and in June 2008 delivered tests to approximately 470,000 test takers over a single weekend for the China Banking Association through its test delivery platform. For further information, please visit: http://www.ata.net.cn.
Safe-Harbor Statement
This announcement may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "look forward to," "outlook," "forecast," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "future," "intend," "plan," "believe," "estimate" and similar terminology. Among the factors that could cause the Company’s actual financial and operating results to differ from what the Company currently anticipate may include the Company’s ability to meet challenges associated with its rapid expansion, the Company’s ability to meet the expectations of current and future clients, the Company’s ability to expand its test titles, the health of the PRC economy, and uncertainties with respect to the PRC legal and regulatory environments. For additional information on these and other important risk factors that could adversely affect the Company’s business, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects, please refer to a more detailed discussion of the Company’s risk factors in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Contact:
ATA Inc. CCG Investor Relations
Carl Yeung, CFO Crocker Coulson, President
Phone: +(86) 10 65181122-5107 Phone: +(1) 646-213-1915
Email: carlyeung@ata.net.cn Ed Job, CFA
URL: http://www.ata.net.cn Phone: +(1) 646-213-1914
Email: ed.job@ccgir.com
URL: http://www.ccgirasia.com
