The Most Widely-Read Magazine and Newspaper in Hong Kong

12/12/2023 Optimize your media budgets

In Hong Kong, newspapers are an integral part of the city life that citizens lead. Keeping us in the loop about everything from local news to global events, therefore making advertising in newspapers a sizeable component for a lot of brands. In this article, we will explore the most popular newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong so that you can stay the most informed when planning your next campaign!

The Most Read Newspapers in Hong Kong

2019 Different Media Share Ratio (%)

	Printed	Online Platform	Mobile Application	Total
Paid Newspaper
Oriental Daily	20.9	11.1	16.9	34.2
Ming Pao	8	5.5	6.4	14.7
Sing Tao Daily	7.9	2.9	2.3	10.7
South China Morning Post	5.7	2.8	3.5	7.5
HK Economic Times	3.1	1.1	1.1	4.5
HK Economic Journal	2.9	1.1	0.8	3.8
Free Newspaper
Headline Daily	31.5	1,6	3.8	32.6
am730	18.4	0.9	1.3	19.4
Sky Post	16.2	0.6	0.6	16.4
Metro Daily	7	0	0.1	7.1
Online Platform
HK 01	/	10.4	17.2	21.2
Stand News	/	11.6	15.1	19.1
Yahoo	/	6.3	6.6	10.1

Credit: Ming Pao Daily

According to the research done by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2019, the most popular printed newspaper is a free newspaper, followed by two paid newspapers, the ranking is as follows:

Headline Daily
Oriental Daily
am730

While reading newspapers is something Hong Kong people cannot live without, a significant increase in digital newspapers has resulted from the pandemic and the fast growth of digital platforms. In 2010, printed newspapers occupied around 71.5% of the market, followed by 28.5% web version and there was no mobile version at the time. Until 2019, the respective ratio was already shifted to 40% (printed version), 25.3% (web version), and 34.7% (mobile version). Such drastic changes mean that printed newspapers are no longer the dominating sources for providing news information and also the term ‘newspaper’ no longer means just ‘printed’ versions.

In 2019, only 21% of the citizens stated that they were still reading printed newspapers. While most of the paid newspapers have shown a declining trend in 2019, the English newspaper South China Morning Post had won against all odds and maintained growth in their readership

South Morning China Post

Hong Kong Economic Journal

The Standard

Mobile & Online Newspaper

We mentioned mobile news is becoming the top source of news for most people but what do the statistics look like?

According to Feedspot, the top Hong Kong online news sites in 2023 are:

Hong Kong Free Press
The Standard
South China Morning Post
Hong Kong Economic Times
Fintech Hong Kong
Metro Daily
Hong Kong Commercial Daily
The Sun Hong Kong
Headline Daily
Sing Tao Daily

Credibility

As we may know, a newspaper's credibility is the main deciding factor for readers alike. Among all the newspapers, South China Morning Post and Ming Pao Daily have long been ranked as the top two paid newspapers in Hong Kong. Headline Daily and The Standard are the top recognizable newspapers in the free newspaper and the English newspaper sections respectively.

Newspaper on Social Media

As the graphs show, social media news usage is ranked second highest and has an average usage rate of 5.4 days per week and takes up 68% of weekly usage across platforms, outweighing all the other forms of newspapers.

According to Ming Pao Daily, social media is the best platform to reach audiences. It can reach around 90%, while online platforms and mobile applications are 50% and 70% respectively. The lowest is printed newspapers which can only reach 40% of the audience. Keep in mind that each mode of newspaper has a different demographic. Depending on your campaign needs and goals, it could be highly beneficial to consider all three of the platforms so you can reach as many eyes as possible.

The Most Popular Magazines in Hong Kong

Hong Kong magazines encompass various topics, ranging from fashion, daily lifestyle, family, and car to business. Be it leisure, entertainment, or informational, advertisers can always find a publication that resonates with their brand. In this next part, we would like to introduce some of the magazines in Hong Kong, to let you have a grasp of everything.

Hearst Group, being one of the famous media companies in Hong Kong, has corporated with South China Morning Post and published various series of magazines, namely:

Chinese Magazines

Esquire
ELLE Men
Cosmopolitan HK (circulation: 58,000)
Cosmo Bride
Harper’s BAZAAR (circulation: 32,000)
ELLE (circulation: 45,000)

English Magazines

The PEAK
HK Magazine

Some of the other magazines by Chinese media companies such as One Media Group include various types of lifestyle and fashion publications, examples:

Ming Pao Weekly (circulation: 30,000)
Ming’s (circulation: 30,000)
Top Gear
Ming Watch
Most Kwai Chung Limited (online) etc.

Hong Kong Economics Times Holdings, famous for its economics daily newspaper, also publishes famous digital magazines on their specific platforms:

U magazine (online platform)
E-zone (online platform)
iMoney (printed and e-version) etc.

New Media Group is also a media that mainly focuses on lifestyle, entertainment, gossip-related and economics magazines.

Oriental Sunday(online)
Economic Digest
Weekend Weekly (online)
Gotrip.hk etc.(online)

A Hong Kong staple, Sing Tao News Corporation Limited, publishes

East Week
Smart Parent
East Touch
Caz Buyer

Here are some other magazines that are also well-known among Hong Kongers:

English Magazines

Marie Claire Hong Kong (around 306,245 HK audiences)
Hong Kong Tatler (circulation: 34,985)
Prestige Hong Kong (2.5M online users)
The Economist (More than 6.5M online participation rate)
Hong Kong Business
Centurion
Forbes Asia

Chinese Magazines

Men’s Uno (circulation: an average of 3600 copies )
Bloomberg Business Week Chinese
Jessica

Browse our press media page to find out more about different magazines! You can also find the advertising rates with the website you are looking for inside the product pages.

References retrieved from:

https://www.hk01.com/社會新聞/465011/中大調查-香港01讀者份額列純網上媒體第一-七成港人手機看新聞

https://news.mingpao.com/ins/文摘/article/20200109/s00022/1578455612489/近年新聞平台的發展和變遷（文-蘇鑰機）

https://journalists.feedspot.com/hong_kong_news_websites/