There are many free newspapers in Hong Kong, which are handed out every morning at the ferry, bus and MTR stations. I noticed that more and more (Chinese-language) appeared and it seems like there is a battle between the free newspapers.
Sky Daily was launched on July 27 and on Sep 17 Sharp Daily (from Apple Daily) were launched. Both publications come from corporations that have already their own paid newspapers – the Hong Kong economic Times and Apple Daily respectively – the latter being one of the city’s top three sellers.
With Metro Daily, AM730, Headline Daily and The Standard (the only English one) the total circulation is between two and three million a day. To put this into context, that is almost the same as the city’s total workforce, as well as being 40 percent of the entire population of Hong Kong.
The battle is now on – and pressure is on the older free dailies. People are unlikely to take all six papers every day and advertisers will have more publications to choose from.
