The Oriental Press Group's Sun daily, which halved its cover price to $3 last month, claims its circulation has reached 380,000 copies, surpassing Next Media's Apple Daily to become Hong Kong's second largest-selling daily after its sister paper, Oriental Daily News.
Before the price cut, the Sun was selling about 100,000 copies. Oriental is believed to sell more than 400,000 copies a day, according to industry sources.
It is understood Apple's circulation has dropped several percentage points to between 320,000 and 330,000 copies a day.
However, media buyers said the Sun's circulation surge had not attracted many new advertisers as they were waiting to see the long-term effectiveness of the campaign.
'The Sun has attracted several small-budget clients such as personal finance companies, but the big spenders keep on using the two big dailies Oriental Daily News and Apple Daily,' a media buyer said.
The Sun last month said that the aim of the price cut was to win back readers from the city's three free daily newspapers - Metro, Sing Tao News Corp's Headline Daily and property agent boss Shih Wing-ching's am730.
'This type of promotion may increase readers for a short period of time but it's not a good readership portfolio for advertisers,' said Tsang Kam-keung, the chief executive of media agent firm Mindshare Hong Kong.
