China Economic Net

Focus Media Holding Co Ltd has set its sights on becoming China's first domestic media company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market by March 1, 2005, company sources said.
The move by the segmented media firm could raise US$100 million and raise its market value to US$400 million following the listing.

"We went through all the necessary procedures by the end of last month, and we are confident that the listing will definitely promote our company to a new stage," said John Ni, executive manager of Focus Media's Guangzhou office.

Focus Media was established at the end of 2002 in Shanghai. Segmented media aims to satisfy a special group of people by focusing on special channels to distribute digital programmes, such as advertisements.

It currently operates digital LCD (liquid crystal display) TV networks in 150 top commercial buildings in Shanghai and 100 in Beijing, according to company statistics.

In these buildings, LCD TVs next to the lifts show the latest advertisements broadcast on the firm's wireless digital network.

These advertisements can be broadcast up to 80 times a day on the LCD TVs.

Focus Media's network currently covers 37 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

The media firm's total turnover is expected to reach 300 million yuan (US$36 million) by the end of this year, according to Ni, who revealed that Focus Media's June sales volume leapt to 20 million yuan (US$2.4 million).

The company now plans to install 15,000 LCD TV sets in 10,000 commercial buildings this year, said Ni.

To date, it has already placed 9,000 sets in 7,000 buildings in major cities across the country.

Its network in South China's Guangdong Province, is soon expected to cover 2,800 top commercial buildings, with 4,000 LCD TV sets.

A total of 2,500 LCD TV sets have so far been installed in 1,600 buildings there, with 600 of these being in 450 major commercial buildings of Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

The second half of this year will see the company expand its digital network in the city's major hospitals, restaurants, cinemas, golf courses, airports and railway stations and beauty salons, according to Ni.

"We are going to let more companies and people in such places get to know about our network and get to know more about our clients' products through our digital broadcasting," Ni said.

Ni added that the company installed a digital network in Guangzhou's buses earlier this year.

"It's possible that we will also install LCD sets in the metro stations which hundreds of thousands of people visit every day," Ni said.

"We think the domestic media market has begun to turn into a segmented market for many advertisement clients today," said company Chief Executive Officer Jiang Chunnan.

"Compared with the traditional media, the segmented media has shown its advantages," said Jiang.

According to Jiang, people always like to watch advertisement programmes on segmented media before they walk into the lifts.

A total of six segmented media firms have been established in China since 2002.

According to Jiang, the value of the domestic media advertising market is expected to total US$100-150 billion in next five years.

"The segmented sector will total US$20-30 billion and I am confident that the sales volume of my company will be US$500 million within three years," said Jiang, who first entered the media world in his college days, when he established his own advertising company.

"The core competitiveness of Focus Media is to open new channels for advertising clients to do more business by targeting special group of consumers through ads," added Jiang.

According to Jiang, media advertisements should be focused on special groups of consumers, in a bid to enhance their effectiveness.

Jiang believes that professional workers, who are always believed to have high incomes, are such a special group of consumers.

"We want to bring the advertisement programmes to this group of people by setting up LCD TV networks in commercial buildings," said Jiang.

Ni believes that the segmented media market will be a cake from which many domestic advertisement clients can take a slice.

His confidence lies in the fact that Focus Media has developed rapidly in the domestic market over the past 18 months, already receiving US$40 million of investment from Japan's Soft Bank.