Losses narrow on surge in advertising revenue on the island
Vigorous growth in circulation and advertising revenue at Next Media's Taiwan publishing operations helped pull the group out of the red last year, with its flagship broadsheet Taiwan Apple Daily now the third-largest newspaper on the island.
Losses at the Taiwan Apple Daily, launched in May 2003, narrowed to $203.4 million from $573.8 million a year ago as advertisers chased the paper's burgeoning readership base.
For the six months to December, the paper achieved an average circulation of more than 500,000 copies, an increase of 23.8 per cent over 2003.
'[For the current fiscal year], the key driver [for Next Media] will still come from Taiwan,' Deutsche Bank analyst Anne Ling wrote in a recent report.
'We expect the [Taiwan business] to break even by the end of this year on a monthly basis, on higher advertising prices and lower operating costs.'
