Next Media heats up newspaper competition

As the dust settled on the sale of Next Media's loss-making television business in Taiwan last month, its boss, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, promised to focus on the print business, a move that looks set to intensify competition in the industry.

Investors have been hoping that the company, which publishes the Chinese-language newspapers Apple Daily and Sharp Daily, will rid itself of the entire Taiwan operations and steer back to the Hong Kong market, where Lai started his media enterprise in 1990.

The Hong Kong-listed company issued a profit warning last week, saying a "substantial increase in loss" was expected for the fiscal year to March 31 because of operating losses incurred for its TV and multimedia operations in Taiwan and Hong Kong's Sharp Daily.

According to the latest financial report, Next Media suffered a net loss of HK$928.39 million in the six months to September 30 last year, nearly triple the loss seen a year earlier, while revenue fell 3.3 per cent to HK$1.78 billion. It said the loss was mainly due to its television business in Taiwan, which it sold for NT$1.4 billion (HK$361.8 million).

However, in Hong Kong the market for Chinese-language newspapers has become even more competitive over recent years with the spread of free publications. Sharp Daily is one of six free newspapers in the city, including one in English, jockeying for advertising dollars.

According to sources at Next Media, the company is bolstering its content and hit rates on Apple Daily's online version and for Sharp Daily.