TAIPEI: Hong Kong portal Tom.com has acquired Sharp Point
Publishing, Taiwan's largest Chinese-language youth magazine and book
publisher, for HK$85.3 million (US$10.9 million).
Sharp Point owns several titles and has established a strong brand among
Taiwan's teenage segment. It publishes nine monthly and four bi-monthly
magazines, with a combined circulation of more than 330,000 in 2000.
Sharp Point also has a book publishing division with 3,800 titles,
covering as many as 25 areas of interest including Japanese comics. Its
monthly print run was more than 300,000 last year. The company's revenue
totalled NT$474.8 million (US$13.8 million) last year, up
from $324.7 million the previous year. Sharp Point's president,
Michael Huang, said the company's "goal is to bring our successful
franchise to China".
The acquisition is the latest addition to Tom.com's print media assets,
and will allow content sharing between Tom.com's network of portals and
its offline businesses. The move is also in line with Tom.com's
aggressive cross-media expansion strategy.
