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Xinhua Interviews Tom.com CEO
The CEO of tom.com Sing Wang sat down with Xinhua News Agency in Beijing and talked about its advantages over the traditional media and its business strategy to buy other websites.
Wang, who worked at Goldman Sachs in Asia before moving to Tom.com, admits that Tom.com has entered the Chinese Internet market late in the game, but it wants to be the best. The core of Tom.com's business model is finding a balance between the Internet, traditional industries and traditional media.
Wang said that online advertising is a very important part of a dot.com company's revenues. But in recent years, advertising revenues have been less than ideal. He thinks that the Internet will have a large market but it will take time. China's advertising industry annual revenue totals 80 billion yuan and the Internet accounts for only a few percentage points of this huge market. Some of China's traditional media's advertising revenues is relatively large and the Internet reaches more customers than some traditional media. Thus, Wang said he has a lot of confidence in their Internet advertising model.
Recently, Tom.com bought out the Chinese sports portal shawei.com and reached an agreement with Y.C. Press Sports Development Ltd. to be strategic partners. In 1998, China's sports industry GDP reached 148 billion yuan and it has continued to receive a lot of support and advertising from manufacturers. It plans to provide website-style sports media promotion activities. Tom.com's partners are the top sports advertisers and organizers in China. With Tom.com's financial resources and they will have an advantage in promoting their name brand. Tom.com's development is based on using the Internet as a tool. The Internet, itself, is a kind of media which can make many traditional media more effective.
Tom.com is a dot.com company backed by Hutchison Whampoa Limited, Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited and other investors. It targets Chinese-speaking and global audiences to "Bring China to the World and the World to China." This March, tom.com went public on Hong Kong's Growth Enterprise Market and quadrupled, giving it a market capitalization of more than US$2 billion.
This June, tom.com introduced eight channels in traditional Chinese characters for Chinese Internet users in Hong Kong and overseas. In July, it introduced twelve channels in simplified Chinese characters. At the same time, it signed a series of agreements with various Chinese organizations and departments including the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The company also created AASTOCKS.com - a website that offers personalized online stock investment services - in Hong Kong. It also holds a 30% stake in she.com a website for Asian women. Tom.com also holds a 50% stake in cnmaya.com, another website which specializes in broadband services.
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