Newspaper stocks fell across the board yesterday as fears of a price war kicked in after Oriental Press Group slashed the price of its Chinese-language daily Sun by half to $3.
Shares of Oriental Press, which also publishes Hong Kong's largest daily by circulation, Oriental Daily News, dropped 3.4 per cent to close at $1.42. Next Media, publisher of Apple Daily, dived 4.91 per cent to $2.90.
Sing Tao News Corp, publisher of the newly launched free daily Headline Daily and paid daily Sing Tao Daily, tumbled 3.89 per cent to finish at 37 cents.
Shares of other publishers such as Ming Pao Enterprise Corp, publisher of Ming Pao Daily News, and Hong Kong Economic Times Holdings were not as badly hit.
Ming Pao fell 1.33 per cent to settle at $1.48. Hong Kong Economic Times slid 2.16 per cent to $1.81, its lowest closing price since listing in July.
Market sources said the circulation of both Oriental Daily News and Apple Daily was affected by the Sun's price cut. Newsstand vendors said the Sun had sold out before 9am.
But the latest circulation figures could not be worked out immediately. 'It takes one to two weeks to reflect the impact of the price cut,' a source close to Apple Daily said.
