The PCCW Internet portal Now.com.hk doubled its subscribers to 130,000 after this year's relaunch as a subscription based service. With 90 per cent of users paying a monthly subscription of HK$30, the Richard Li Tzar-kai's content arm is one of the top local portals in terms of revenue, despite making losses. PCCW vice-president of Internet operations Monita Leung Hoi-yi said Now.com had been adding almost 10,000 subscribers a month since the beginning of the year, when it began to charge its users for content access. In January it had between 50,000 and 60,000 paid subscribers. 'Our growth in subscribers showed that they are getting used to finding entertainment on their computers,' Ms Leung said. 'It is such a powerful medium, and we know success is just a matter of time.' Mr Li spent a long time searching for a successful medium to create investment value after he sold Star TV to News Corp's Rupert Murdoch in the mid 1990s. When his technology flagship - then Pacific Century CyberWorks - came on the Hong Kong stock market in 1999, he quickly established a joint venture with Intel with the hope of catching the media convergence trend in Asia. The Intel content joint venture turned into Network of the World (NOW) for a short existence, before it was downsized to a local operation, now.com.hk. Leveraged on the 385,000 users base for its broadband service Netvigator, Now.com.hk reached a critical mass after its revamp in September last year. The portal, which targeted audience from the age of 12 to 35, created a walled garden of content by incubating music, movies, games content from leading local providers such as TVB, Commercial Radio, and Mei Ah Entertainment. Ms Leung said the portal was closer to an online magazine and appealed to those who chose a computer over television as a medium of entertainment. Subscribers can access entertainment on demand - movies or music on a pay per view basis. This part of Now.com.hk's revenue stream has been growing, although it is not significant at the moment, according to Ms Leung. However, in its second year of operation, Now.com.hk is aggressively looking for more pay per view options and more business to business partnership to leverage on its expanding subscriber base. 'Our subscription base is comparable to the best-selling magazine in Hong Kong, and that enables us to explore more business opportunities,' Ms Leung said. In July, PCCW pulled out of its pay-television operation, iTV, which it inherited from HKT. PCCW is convinced now.com.hk can replace the interactive TV business, serving its customers at no extra costs.
