SPH’s Q1 media profit crashed by half year-on-year

Photo credit: Reuben Schade.

Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore’s largest newspaper publisher, continues to struggle in the online world. Its quarterly media profit before taxation fell from US$43 million to US$23 million, a 47 percent decline from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017.

This piles onto its grim picture in the past few years:

Its key financial figures are all down (see for yourself here) despite an increase in online circulation. It’s clearly struggling to monetize its online reach, a problem that all legacy publishers are facing.

I’ve reached out to SPH for comment on its future plans, and have yet to hear back. Its investments in online properties and technologies haven’t borne fruit yet, and future plans for its SPH Plug & Play accelerator remain vague.

One upside in the past quarter, and for the entire FY 2016, is that its property revenue increased (it developed and runs several properties in Singapore).

But if this keeps up, SPH may one day have to call itself a property company.

Update on Jan 16, 4:20pm SGT: Headline was updated to reflect the fact that the decline in profit was year-on-year (Q1 2017 vs Q1 2016), and not quarter-on-quarter.