According to Josephine Chan, GM and publisher of SCMP Magazines, which publishes both the Hong Kong and China editions, sales had been falling across the territory over the last year.
She said that this, coupled with the fact that the company had always planned on having one product across both markets, meant now was the right time to merge the two. “Because it is quite difficult to launch a magazine in China due to the delays encountered, we decided to launch a Hong Kong edition initially. When the China edition launched at the end of 2005, we planned to merge the two,” she said.
“However, the Hong Kong edition has not been performing well in terms of advertising.”
Chan noted the newly-merged title would share the same distribution network as the separate titles. Maxim competes with several other lads’ mags, including FHM, GQ and Esquire.
