WhiteHat Jr Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Karan Bajaj said he wished he had focused on advertisements before the digital marketing campaign came under scrutiny.
Byju's-owned WhiteHat Jr, which teaches coding to children, has come under criticism for its advertisements. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) asked the company in October to withdraw five advertisements due to misleading claims.
"Our vision is that children are builders and creators. We celebrate building and creation, and that is the original thesis. The messaging has now returned to the original state. Any advertising we did to the contrary, I would openly say we should not have done it," Bajaj told Mint.
Bajaj also spoke about international expansion, adding that the company would venture into non-English markets with pilots in Brazil and Mexico.
"We are already present in the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia and both the coding curriculum and the live teachers' model have been well received in these markets. We are now looking at deeper international expansion," he told the paper.
Bajaj also spoke to Mint about growth in the Indian market, giving brief insight into user demographics.
"When we started, the course was well-received in the metros but now 55 percent of the user base is outside the top 10 metros while 45 percent are from the top 10 metros proving that coding is now a deep phenomenon," he said.
Bajaj said WhiteHat Jr has grown 60 percent month-on-month since July 2019 and 100 percent after the pandemic.
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