About APA

APA

APA, the Azeri-Press Agency, known in Azerbaijani as Azəri Press Agentliyi, is a news agency based in Baku, Azerbaijan. Registered in 2004 and launched later the same year, it publishes news in Azerbaijani, Russian and English on politics, the economy, society, culture and sport, and it also covers breaking regional and worldwide developments. Over more than two decades it has grown from a single agency into the core news operation of a larger organisation, first APA Holding and, since 2019, APA Media Group. That group now presents APA as its flagship news agency and as the centre for its news, information and analytical content, alongside sister brands covering general news, sport, culture and television. APA is therefore best understood on two levels at once: as a working wire whose reports are republished by other Azerbaijani outlets and used by institutions, and as the founding business around which a wider media group was built.

Overview

At its simplest, APA is a Baku-based supplier of news. Media Landscapes, the European Journalism Centre reference on media in individual countries, describes it issuing newsletters and online bulletins in three languages, with subscribers and customers that include embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions, international representatives, government agencies and ministries, financial institutions, representatives of international financial institutions in Azerbaijan, foreign companies and local and foreign business entities. The same source says most of its subscribers are the leading pro-government and opposition press and independent media in Azerbaijan, and that organisations of the Azerbaijani diaspora are also among its permanent subscribers. That breadth of the stated customer base helps explain the agency's practical importance. A story moved by APA does not only reach readers who visit its own website at apa.az. It can also reach newsrooms, offices and institutions that take its bulletins and then reuse, follow up or act on the information.

APA Media Group, on its own about page, describes itself as one of Azerbaijan's leading media companies and as the country's first structured media holding to evolve into a modern media group. Those are the group's own characterisations of itself, and they should be read as such, but the underlying corporate sequence behind them is documented on the same page and is set out below. The group says its present work goes beyond news production to include multimedia production, digital media solutions, content licensing, data services, API integrations and AI-powered media technologies. APA the agency sits inside that wider offer, while remaining, in the group's own wording, the business with which the company was founded in 2004.

Registration and launch in Baku

The founding dates are unusually precise and are consistent across the main reference sources. APA was registered on 8 January 2004 by the Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan, and it launched its operations on 16 November 2004. Both Wikipedia's article on the agency and Media Landscapes give the same two dates, and Media Landscapes is the source cited for them. APA Media Group's own history is less specific, saying only that the company was founded in 2004 with the establishment of APA News Agency, the Azeri-Press Agency, but it does not contradict the January registration and November launch dates given by the reference sources.

The gap between registration and launch is worth noting because it shows that APA did not appear as an informal website that later acquired a legal identity. It was registered with the Ministry of Justice first, and it began operating about ten months later. No source consulted for this profile gives a reliable account of who founded the agency, what its initial staffing was, or how it was financed at launch, so those points are not asserted here. What can be said from the record is that, once launched, APA built its reputation, in the group's words, on speed, accuracy, credibility and editorial independence, and that external reporting in 2018 described it as a private agency that held a privileged position in Azerbaijan. How its ownership and status should be characterised is a point on which sources differ, and that difference is addressed openly in the final section of this profile.

Languages and news coverage

APA presents information in Azerbaijani, Russian and English. That three-language service is stated by both Wikipedia and Media Landscapes, and it has been a defining feature of the agency since the reference descriptions of it were written. Its newsletters and online bulletins cover political, economic, social, cultural and sports events within Azerbaijan, as well as breaking news about ongoing regional and worldwide developments. In other words, APA was not set up as a specialist wire for a single sector. It was a general news agency, intended to follow public life across the country and to place Azerbaijani events in a regional and international frame for readers and subscribers working in any of its three languages.

APA Media Group's current brand page for the agency describes a much more detailed editorial structure today. It lists daily coverage across government and domestic politics, foreign affairs and diplomacy, parliament and government, law and the judiciary, national security, the economy, financial markets, banking, insurance, energy, business, social affairs, society, science and education, healthcare, culture, sports, tourism, technology and innovation, emergencies, and regional and international affairs. That list is the group's present-day description of its own output, not an independent audit of it, but it is consistent with the original general-news remit described by Media Landscapes, expanded into named desks. The same brand page also stresses a universal newsroom model, arguing that when APA entered the market most independent agencies in Azerbaijan specialised in only one or two areas, whereas APA brought the major areas of public life together under a single editorial structure.

Subscribers, bureaus and correspondent network

APA's reach inside Azerbaijan was built, according to Media Landscapes, on offices in all regions of the country. The same source lists foreign offices in Turkey, Russia, Iran, Georgia and Great Britain. That five-country foreign list is the documented position in the Media Landscapes and Wikipedia accounts, and it is the list carried in most short descriptions of the agency. Readers should note the wording carefully: the reference sources say Great Britain, not a wider formulation, and they do not, in those accounts, list offices in the United States or France.

APA Media Group's current brand page gives a broader and somewhat different picture. It says that, in addition to reporters stationed across every economic and administrative region of Azerbaijan, APA maintains international correspondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Türkiye, Georgia, Iran, Russia and other countries. Because that is a current self-description by the group, and because it uses the word correspondents rather than offices, it is not directly comparable with the older office list. It may reflect expansion, a change in how postings are described, or both. This profile therefore keeps the two accounts separate: the Turkey, Russia, Iran, Georgia and Great Britain offices are the externally referenced position, while the longer list of correspondent locations is APA's own current claim. No independently verified, up-to-date bureau-by-bureau list was found.

From a single agency to APA Holding and APA Media Group

As its portfolio expanded, according to APA Media Group, APA Holding was established in 2012, bringing APA News Agency and its affiliated media organisations together under a unified corporate management structure. The group calls this the creation of Azerbaijan's first structured media holding, introducing a centralised management model for multiple media brands, editorial teams and digital platforms. In the same year, 2012, APA Holding adopted a Code of Ethics. The group says the code defines its principles of editorial independence, professional integrity, transparency, accountability, ethical journalism and responsible media practices, and that it continues to serve as one of the foundations of the group's corporate culture.

In 2019 APA Holding was reorganised as APA Media Group. The group presents that change as more than a rebranding, marking an evolution from a traditional news agency into a modern media organisation operating across journalism, multimedia, digital technologies, data and intellectual property management. Today the group lists among its brands APA News Agency, Lent.az, Vesti.az, APASport.az, Kulis.az and APA TV, and its website navigation also lists a brand abbreviated as AJM. Wikipedia's older account, reflecting the earlier holding structure, says the agency was a member of APA Holding LLC, which also included APA Servis LLC, and that APA Servis included the internet television channel APA TV. The two accounts are not in conflict so much as dated differently: one describes the holding as it was, the other describes the media group as it presents itself now. The group's contact address, as published on its own website, is in Baku, on Najafgulu Rafiyev Street.

Multimedia, economics and specialist services

APA is no longer described, even by its own group, as a text-only wire. The group's brand page says the agency produces photo reports, video reports, live broadcasts, special on-site coverage, studio interviews, documentary video productions and real-time video footage from the scene of events, supported by a nationwide network of correspondents and camera crews. The group also presents APA as a pioneer of multimedia journalism in Azerbaijan, and lists among the firsts it claims for the agency that it was the first independent news agency in the country to publish breaking news directly in Azerbaijani, to establish its own independent online news platform, to develop a systematic video news service and to provide live news broadcasting via the internet. Those firsts are the group's own claims about its history. They are recorded here as claims, attributed to APA, rather than as independently verified records.

Two specialist products are described in more concrete terms. APA Economics is presented as a specialised platform for news, market intelligence and analytical content on the economy, financial markets, banking, insurance, investments, energy and business, and the group says APA has produced market rankings, comparative industry statistics, sector reports and analytical research on Azerbaijan's banking and insurance industries. APA Blog is described as a publishing platform for experts, analysts, academics, researchers and industry professionals, carrying opinion, analysis and commentary on subjects including politics, international relations, economics, security, law, technology and society. Beyond editorial products, the group lists core business areas including photography and video services, digital publishing, media archive management, content licensing, API and data services, advertising and corporate media solutions, serving media organisations, government institutions, international organisations, businesses and technology companies in Azerbaijan and internationally. Its brand page also states that APA content is protected by copyright and is made available through licensing agreements.

Suspension in 2018 and return in 2019

The most serious interruption in APA's history began on 1 August 2018. Media Landscapes summarises it briefly: APA resumed its activities in June 2019, after its websites had been offline since August 2018 following a misquoted declaration by President Ilham Aliyev. Contemporary reporting by Eurasianet, republished by Meydan TV on 22 August 2018, gives more detail. APA, together with its sister outlets Lent.az and APA Sport in APA Holding, was shut down on 1 August. The apparent pretext, in that reporting's wording, was a mistranscription of a speech by President Aliyev at an August 1 ceremony giving out cars and homes to war veterans. In the speech, the president said Azerbaijan would use all its resources to further weaken Armenia if Armenian leaders continued to stall negotiations. APA rendered the verb differently, as destroy. Because many Azerbaijani news sites reprint APA stories, the error spread.

APA quickly apologised for the mistake, according to the same reporting, and two days later its editor-in-chief, Vusala Mahirqizi, announced on Facebook that, as a result of certain problems, the activity of the sites affiliated with APA Holding had been suspended by the company itself and that an investigation had been launched. Eurasianet noted that the authorities did not provide an explanation, and that media observers suggested internal business struggles could lie behind the move. It quoted media expert Alasgar Ahmadoghlu saying that no media organisation in the country had a stable and legal guarantee, and it reported support for APA from Azar Hasrat, a board member of the Public Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, who said APA employed more than 200 journalists. That employment figure comes from a supporter's statement reported at the time, not from a published company account, and it should be treated accordingly. The suspension nevertheless ended: APA resumed activities in June 2019, the same year in which APA Holding was reorganised as APA Media Group.

Leadership, standards and training

The public figure most consistently associated with APA in the sources consulted is Vusala Mahirqizi, whose surname is also transliterated as Mahirgizi in some English-language reports of the group's own news. She was APA's editor-in-chief at the time of the August 2018 suspension, when she announced the suspension and later commented publicly on the speculation around it. By 2025 she was being reported, in coverage of media events in Baku, as Director General of APA Media Group, speaking for the group on the history of Azerbaijani media, on reliable news production and on the preparation of journalists. A separate report identifies Nurshan Guliyev as APA Media Group's editor-in-chief in connection with its journalism school. This profile does not go beyond those reported roles, because no complete, dated list of the group's current directors and editors was found in the sources consulted.

On standards, the group's brand page says APA is a member of the Azerbaijan Press Council and is officially registered in the Media Registry of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It also says APA was the first news company in Azerbaijan to secure legal protection for its brands and trademarks through official state registration, and that it holds certification from Global Certification Limited confirming compliance with internationally recognised quality management standards. On training, reports of the group's own events in 2025 describe an APA Journalism School, established about a year earlier, teaching practical skills with experienced journalists, holding successive training courses and presenting certificates to graduates, some of whom were reported to have taken jobs at APA and at other media organisations. Those details come from reports of APA's own announcements and ceremonies, and they show a group presenting training as part of its role in the wider Azerbaijani media profession.

Position in Azerbaijan's media landscape

APA's significance is easiest to see in comparison with the other agencies named alongside it. Media Landscapes places it in a small group of Azerbaijani news agencies that includes the state agency AzerTac, whose history goes back to 1920, the independent agency Turan, founded in 1990, and Trend News Agency, founded in 1995. Eurasianet's 2018 reporting described APA as one of only three news agencies, along with Trend and AzerTac, to have official access to President Aliyev's events, despite describing APA itself as a private agency. That combination, a large subscriber base, offices across Azerbaijan, a three-language service and access to presidential events, explains why its ten-month absence in 2018 and 2019 was treated by commentators at the time as an event for the whole Azerbaijani media sector, not only for one company. When a wire that other newsrooms copy goes offline, the effect is felt by the outlets and institutions that depend on it as well as by its own staff and readers.

Today APA continues to operate as the group's flagship, publishing through apa.az and supplying the breaking news, analysis, interviews, photojournalism and video reporting that the group says its brands together deliver. Its recent public activity, as listed on APA Media Group's corporate news page, includes a cooperation agreement between APA and China's CCTV+ reported in August 2026, and group journalists winning prizes in an individual journalism competition run by Azerbaijan's Media Development Agency, reported in July 2026. Those items are drawn from the group's own corporate news listing and are given here as examples of the activity it publicly records, not as an independent assessment of its influence.

What is known and what remains unverified

Several core facts about APA are well supported and consistent across sources: its registration on 8 January 2004 and launch on 16 November 2004, its Baku base, its publication in Azerbaijani, Russian and English, its coverage of politics, economy, society, culture and sport, its offices in all Azerbaijani regions, the foreign offices listed by Media Landscapes, the establishment of APA Holding in 2012, its suspension from August 2018 and its resumption in June 2019. Other points are less settled, and this profile flags them openly rather than filling the gaps. Sources differ on how to characterise the agency itself: Wikipedia describes it as a government press agency, while Eurasianet described it as a private agency, and APA Media Group presents it as an independent news agency within its own holding. No source consulted resolved that disagreement with ownership documents, so no single label is asserted here.

Figures are also thin and sometimes inconsistent. APA Media Group's about page says its archive contains more than 3.1 million news articles, over 6 million photographs and more than 300,000 original videos, while its brand page for APA gives different figures for the agency's own digital assets, including more than 1.7 million published articles and more than 3.6 million photographs, and describes multilingual archive content in Azerbaijani, English, Russian, French and Persian. Because the group scope and the agency scope may differ, and because neither set of figures is independently audited in the sources consulted, this profile does not present any archive total as a verified fact. Likewise, no reliable figures were found for APA's current staff numbers, revenue, subscriber numbers or website audience, and claims that its platforms reach millions of readers every day are the group's own wording. Where the record is a company's description of itself, this profile has said so, so that readers can weigh the documented history of APA separately from the way APA Media Group now presents it.