FEER(8/7) Global China Opers Plan Africa, Europe Expansion
Just three years ago, Global China Group was a media minnow. But its chairman and founder, Hong Kong entrepreneur Charles Ho , had a vision -- "to become a multimedia corporation serving global Chinese communities." Today, the group publishes 16 newspapers in Australia, North America and Britain and claims a global media circulation of 200,000 and a readership of some 2 million.
Not bad for a venture that started out with a small broadband Internet service in China's Shandong province. "On a single-brand basis, our flagship newspaper Sing Tao Daily is considered the largest, Chinese-language, international newspaper among the Overseas Chinese communities (excluding the Greater China region and Southeast Asia)," says Wong Wai Ming, Global China's chief executive officer.
Without a licence to circulate its media products in China, and given Taiwan's crowded market, Global China's empire is currently confined to the rest of the Chinese-speaking world. But in Global China's view, that's a worthy prize.
The company's expansion drive began when it acquired the ailing Hong Kong daily, Sing Tao, in 2001. The middlebrow title with a reputation for being pro-Beijing had been sold by its previous owner, Sally Aw, to the merchant bankers Lazards, who, in turn, sold it to Global China for HK$690 million ($88 million). Company officials claim it has already recouped its initial investment by selling Sing Tao's nonmedia assets.
Global China is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and recorded a profit of HK$162 million on revenue of HK$1.09 billion for the year ending December 31, 2002, compared with a loss of HK$131.4 million for the previous year.
Sing Tao claims to have the largest-circulating Chinese-language daily in Britain, and also publishes in Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and San Francisco. "Where there are Chinese, there is Sing Tao Daily," the company boasts. In the next year, Global China plans to expand in Africa and Europe and is targeting a daily circulation of 500,000, a market the group estimates could generate $250 million-$300 million in annual revenue.
According to CEO Wong, the key to profitability is relevance, but each of these markets is different. Most Los Angeles readers have Taiwanese roots; San Francisco customers tend to trace their origins to mainland China; and New York has a concentration of immigrants from Fujian. They all want news from their former homes.
Global China's answer has been to set up a news production centre in China itself and tie up with various local newspapers in China and Taiwan to help provide relevant local content for each overseas edition. The group's Shenzhen production centre, meanwhile, now produces the bulk of news for all Sing Tao's editions.
The idea is to create what Wong calls a "central kitchen" for all of the group's news publications. This now includes a stable of lifestyle magazines mostly circulating in Hong Kong, Sing Tao and the English-language The Standard in Hong Kong.
But Global China's real goal is to crack the mainland market. Here, the major problems are selling a product and maintaining editorial control over its content. For most foreign media groups this means a long wait on the sidelines while local publications reap a windfall.
Global China has made a leap into one permissible area of investment, setting up a joint-venture media distribution company with the state-owned People's Daily. This doesn't mean that it can sell its own publications, but does give the group an insight into China's market. "This gives us a first-hand knowledge of which publishers are good and bad," says Wong. "So as and when the market opens up, we'll stand a better chance than others."
泛华集团剑指欧非大陆
三年前
