BUSINESS PUBLISHING IN CHINA: Issues, Trends and Tactics

China?s business publishing industry remains relatively small. Depending on how it is defined, estimates for total market size vary from $200-300 m a year in advertising revenues. Subscriptions revenues and individual copy sales remain generally limited.

Overall print media advertising, however, is growing rapidly, at up to almost 20% a year according to some estimates.

The legal environment for publishing in China remains extremely challenging. It is almost impossible to operate there without, to some extent, working in ?grey areas? of what is permitted. This suits the Chinese authorities for the time being and we do not anticipate substantial change in that.

China?s emerging B2B publishing leaders such as HC International and SEEC Media are setting their sights on over-seas expansion. The first stop is likely to be Hong Kong and Taiwan, followed by south-east Asia, Korea and Japan.

Intellectual property infringements are still a key problem for business publishers in China. Most accept that copyright theft is an almost unavoidable fact of life. They take a harder line on trademark abuse and there have been a number of cases taken to court although not all outcomes have been completely satisfactory.

The US IT publisher IDG is the dominant player in this market with a business already far bigger than any of its rivals. Some purely domestic companies have already emerged with significant market share such as HC International.

There are various ways in which to work in this market including joint ventures through advertising and consulting companies, licensing and offshore business structures.

We expect to see some non-traditional approaches to the market with, for example, a number of publishers using internet-based, electronic-only publications as their main route for market entry. As database quality improves and internet access continues to become more widespread, this becomes an increasingly viable alternative to trying to navigate the legal and commercial minefields of traditional publishing.