Malay Mail Goes 100% Digital

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – Media OutReach�- 26 October 2018 – Malay Mail —
the oldest English newspaper in Malaysia — will change its business model and
go 100% digital on 2^nd December when it stops its print operations
on 1^st December 2018 which is also its 122^nd birthday.

 

Its Editor-in-Chief
Datuk Wong Sai Wan made the announcement to the 165 staff in a town hall
meeting at its Petaling Jaya headquarters on Thursday.

 

“It is a change of
business direction. We are going into the full gamut of the digital business
from content to marketing.

 

“The old way of doing
the newspaper business of advertising subsidising the circulation, editorial
and printing costs is no longer viable,” said Wong.

 

Malay Mail now operates
a very successful news portal with unique visitors totalling some 4.3 million
of which 80 per cent of the traffic coming from mobile. Its monthly social
media reach is 5.1 million with 13 million-page engagements.

 

Wong said such high
traffic volume has encourage the management to abandon the traditional print and
expand its digital reach.

 

He said the company
will ramp up its digital plans through new acquisitions of portals, blog-sites
and social media sites.

 

Malay Mail will no
longer restrict itself to hard breaking news and stick to its motto of “News
that you can use.” Malay Mail and its new sites will be more in touch with its
readers as well as its clients.

 

“We want to be relevant
and useful to all our stakeholders — readers and clients,” Wong added.

 

He also said a third of
present staff may be outplaced, though nothing has been finalised.

 

The media industry
worldwide has been shifting rapidly in recent years and embracing digital
technology as the way people communicate and consume news evolves.