About HK01

HK01

HK01, known in Chinese as Xianggang 01, is a Hong Kong news outlet published at hk01.com by HK01 Company Limited. Launched as a website on 11 January 2016 and for six years also as a weekly print newspaper, it grew into one of Hong Kong's most visited Chinese-language news services, reporting 1.7 million daily unique visitors across its website and mobile applications in October 2021 and more than five million monthly unique viewers in Comscore data for the same month. It operates more than 60 content channels spanning news, finance, entertainment, food, travel, sport and technology, and presents itself as a Media Plus internet lifestyle platform for Hong Kong people.

Founding by Yu Pun-hoi

HK01 was established in June 2015 and is managed by HK01 Company Limited. It was launched by Yu Pun-hoi, a former chairman of Ming Pao and a pro-Beijing businessman who writes opinions for the outlet's 01 Opinion column. Contemporary launch reporting described the project as published by the media holding WeMedia01 (HK) Limited and owned through Nan Hai Corporation interests; Yu's Nan Hai group held a majority interest in the venture. The founder's stated mission at the print launch was to drive social change, restructure social values and drive media reform, and the outlet claims to be an advocacy media for social reform, integrating social reform into the role of media and inspiring people about social issues.

The website went live on 11 January 2016. Its Facebook page had been started on 28 December 2015 and attracted more than 112,000 fans within weeks, according to its technology partner's launch account, which also recorded that the site targeted 300,000 page views in February 2016. HK01 was an early example of a fully multichannel Hong Kong newsroom, built from the start to publish the same operation in print, on the web, and on tablets, smartphones and social media.

The HK01 Weekly newspaper

On 11 March 2016 HK01 added a weekly print newspaper, HK01 Weekly, published every Friday by HK01 Company Limited under Yu Pun-hoi's ownership. The first edition was priced at HK$20, consisted of four sections covering politics and current affairs, international economics, local lifestyle and profile, and entertainment, and came with two magazine bundles titled Being Local and Being Global. Launch reporting put the planned print run at 100,000 copies a week, with editions of up to 196 pages.

Launching a print weekly in 2016 was a deliberate counter-trend move. Hong Kong print media had suffered serious setbacks the previous year, with long-established titles including Hong Kong Daily News and Sing Pao Daily shutting down and magazine closures at other groups. HK01's management argued a quality weekly could still find readers alongside a fast digital service. The weekly continued until it ceased publication on 29 August 2022, after which HK01 continued as a digital-only outlet. By 2019 the company had a staff of approximately 700, of whom launch-era reporting indicated a large majority worked in editorial.

Channels, services and the Media Plus model

HK01 describes its ambition as building a Media Plus internet lifestyle platform, providing instant and diversified news and lifestyle information in more than 60 channels, as well as personalised lifestyle services through multiple service platforms. Company and partner descriptions list its content range as news, finance, entertainment, food, travel, technology, sport, fashion, beauty and culture, combining hard-news channels with lifestyle services intended to engage users and advertisers across different segments.

The outlet is one of the Hong Kong media organisations cited for providing customised and relevant content for users, and it presents its combination of technology with media as central to its model: a mix of news and lifestyle content plus multiple lifestyle services. In industry recognition, HK01 was ranked the number one digital media brand for entertainment in the Hong Kong Media Report 2022 results. Its headquarters are recorded at 7/F, Tower 1, Ever Gain Plaza, 88 Container Port Road, Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, and it publishes in Traditional Chinese.

Audience and influence

HK01's audience figures are among the best documented of any Hong Kong online outlet. According to Comscore MMX Multi-Platform data for October 2021, cited in the company's own reporting, HK01's monthly unique viewers surpassed five million in the News/Information General News category, which the company said continued its leading position in Hong Kong's Chinese-language media industry. Wikipedia's summary of the same period records 1.7 million unique visitors viewing HK01's websites and mobile applications on a daily basis as of October 2021, which made it the most influential news media in Hong Kong.

Its mobile application was the most downloaded news app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Hong Kong for more than 45 months from March 2018. Those figures explain HK01's weight in Hong Kong public life: in a city of roughly seven and a half million people, a Chinese-language service reaching five million monthly unique viewers and leading news-app downloads for nearly four years is a central arena for news, advertising and public debate.

Editorial stance and the claimed third path

HK01 claims to aim at a third path in the political fights between Hong Kong's pro-democracy and pro-establishment camps. Its political alignment is nevertheless widely described as pro-Beijing and pro-One Country, Two Systems: Hong Kong Free Press described it as a pro-Beijing media outlet in 2019, and its founder Yu Pun-hoi is a pro-Beijing businessman. Reporters Without Borders reporting on Hong Kong's new online media generation likewise noted that HK01, launched in 2016, was owned by the China-linked investment company Nan Hai Corp and was criticised for the complacency of some of its articles toward Beijing.

That tension between a reformist self-image and an establishment-aligned ownership has defined outside discussion of HK01. The outlet's own advocacy framing emphasises social reform and inspiring readers about social issues, while critics focus on ownership and on specific editorial decisions, two of which became public controversies examined by the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

The Tiananmen article controversy

In 2017 HK01 was criticised by the Hong Kong Journalists Association for deleting an article covering the release of new details of the Tiananmen Square massacre by the UK Government Archives shortly after the article's publication. Pressure from founder Yu Pun-hoi was suspected to have motivated the removal. The article was later republished with a rebuttal saying that mistakes had been made when verifying the information contained in the original version and denying that there had been self-censorship. The journalists' association said it was extremely concerned over the handling of the report, and the episode became a reference point in debates about editorial independence at owner-founded Hong Kong outlets.

Taiwan, independence and the blacklist

In 2018 HK01 was again criticised by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, this time over tagging an article it published about Taiwanese independence with an anti-independence disclaimer. The company also maintains a blacklist containing pro-independence parties and groups in Hong Kong whose events it will not attend, with whom it will not form partnerships, and from whom it will not accept advertising. Reporting of the blacklist in February 2019 appeared in the same Hong Kong Free Press coverage that reported HK01 firing about 70 employees to improve efficiency as part of a restructuring. Together, the disclaimer and blacklist episodes documented the practical meaning of the outlet's One Country, Two Systems alignment for its newsroom decisions.

Restructuring and the end of print

The February 2019 restructuring, in which about 70 employees were fired in a move the company framed as improving efficiency, showed the commercial pressures on even Hong Kong's largest digital news operations. HK01 nevertheless retained a staff of approximately 700 that year and continued to lead Hong Kong news-app downloads. The larger structural change came in 2022: HK01 Weekly, the print edition that had distinguished the brand at launch, ceased publication on 29 August 2022. The closure ended the print experiment begun in 2016 and left hk01.com and its apps as the outlet's sole publishing platforms.

Founder Yu Pun-hoi's personal finances later became news in their own right. Dimsum Daily reported in April 2024 that Yu had been declared bankrupt after failing to settle a debt exceeding HK$416 million owed to CCB International Overseas Ltd, with a bankruptcy order issued by the High Court in March 2023, and that Yu had filed an appeal contesting the ruling. The report noted shares linked to Nan Hai Corporation had been used as collateral. That development concerned the founder rather than a reported closure of the outlet, which continued publishing.

HK01 today

Today HK01 continues at hk01.com as a digital Chinese-language news and lifestyle platform operated by HK01 Company Limited, headquartered in Kwai Chung. Its documented record — a 2016 launch as Hong Kong's first truly multichannel newsroom of its kind, a six-year weekly newspaper, more than 60 channels, five million monthly unique viewers in October 2021 and a long run as the city's most downloaded news app — makes it one of the defining Hong Kong media creations of the social-media era, and its controversies make it a documented case study in the relationship between ownership, advocacy and newsroom independence in Hong Kong.