According to admanGo, adspend figures for Metro's competitors Headline Daily and am730 show marked increases. Headline's ad revenue increased from HK$1.9 million (US$245,000) in July to $6.8 million approximately in August and again for September, while am730's numbers jumped from $373,000 to $11 million over the same period.
However, Metro dropped from just over $26 million for the months of July and August respectively, to $20 million in September. Metro chiefs say the fall can be attributed to a cyclical downturn each year. "August is always a high season for newspapers," said Peter Kuo, CEO of Metro. "This is almost the same as last year."
Some of the paid dailies have also seen drops in advertising revenue over the last three months, although industry analysts said it was too soon to attribute the fall to the introduction of the new players.
"Currently, looking at the figures, the free newspapers have not yet had too much of an impact on adspend at paid dailies," said Jennifer Ma, director of sales and marketing at admanGo.
