Following the addition of a four-high tower to an existing Uniliner press line earlier this year, Sing Tao News Corporation has ordered a new five-tower Uniliner press. The investment will address the continuing growth in circulation of leading Hong Kong free newspaper, Headline Daily.
 
Scheduled for shipment at the end of April 2011, the new double-width, double-circumference (16-page) Goss Uniliner press for Sing Tao will print up to 80,000 papers per hour and will be configured with five splicers and one folder.
 
The new press will complement production from a similar four-tower 4x2 Uniliner press line and a five-tower 4x1 (double-width, single-circumference) Uniliner press line in printing key Hong Kong titles for Sing Tao News Corporation. These include flagship broadsheet Sing Tao Daily, one of the world's most widely read Chinese daily newspapers, and the English free newspaper The Standard, as well as the Headline Daily.
 
According to Ronald Yang, executive director of Sing Tao News Corporation Limited, the investment reflects the vision of the company to become a leading content and service provider serving global Chinese communities. The continuing success of Headline Daily, both in terms of market penetration and advertising demand is testament to a winning strategy.
 
Headline Daily is positioned as a quality newspaper, primarily targeting the mass market population. The paper aims to deliver the most up-to-date news and information to readers in a concise style and format. This strong brand combined with modern marketing tools and editorial features such as ‘citizen journalism’ have seen Headline Daily continue to dominate as market leader since its launch in July 2005. Today it is the number one free newspaper in Hong Kong averaging a circulation in excess of 790,000 copies, and is widely recognized as a highly effective advertising medium.
 
Peter Kirwan, Goss International vice president of Asia Pacific newspaper sales believes that Goss Uniliner technology has fulfilled and exceeded expectations at Sing Tao with each installation. “The nature of the Uniliner press design allows us to expand press lines with minimal inconvenience and minimal downtime, and this initially provided Sing Tao with the reassurance of a straightforward potential growth path,” he explains. “As their production requirements have changed in line with market conditions, they have exploited this capability, while the Uniliner model continues to be their ideal technology for its combination of powerful performance, quality and future flexibility.”
 
Sing Tao News Corporation Limited is a media corporation listed on the main board of Hong Kong Stock Exchange. In the past few years, the Sing Tao Group has further expanded its presence, through a number of joint ventures and strategic alliances, into the media market in mainland China. With a business network covering major cities of China, the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia, the Group employs over 2,400 staff worldwide.