A MIX of sex, gossip and the novelty of a free apple made Apple Daily, Hong Kong's newest newspaper, a sell-out, it said, even though distribution problems marred yesterday's launch.
Businessman Jimmy Lai Chee-ying is spending $60 million on a month-long promotion campaign for the daily, which has an initial print-run of 220,000 copies.
The main difficulty yesterday was the limited number of delivery vans available to distribute the paper, rather than the promised boycott by hawkers.
Editor-in-chief Loh Chan said last-minute talks with newspaper distributors had averted a confrontation with vendors, who threatened to torpedo the launch in a row over special cut-price coupons.
The coupons allowed the public to buy a copy of the paper for $2, but hawkers said they would not accept the coupons because they were inconvenient.
Mr Loh said there had been a few isolated incidents where hawkers had refused to sell the paper or to accept coupons. Apple Daily was paying hawkers $4.50 a copy, compared with $1.50 paid by other newspapers, to encourage sales.
