Paywall down as Alibaba takes ownership of SCMP

Two decades ago the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s premier English-language newspaper, paved the way for the city’s media companies to embrace the digital revolution with the pioneering launch of its online edition.

Fast forward to today and the Post is blazing a new trail again by giving readers free access to its online and mobile editions, opening up the most comprehensive and credible news site on Greater China to the rest of the world.

Quantum leaps in technology and human interaction through digital media have transformed SCMP.com from a no-frills platform, in the days when internet giants such as Google had not even surfaced, into the subscription-based service that has more than 2.5 million users a month.

At a critical time when media companies in Hong Kong and around the world are either closing down or engaged in severe cost-cutting to survive, the Post is bucking the trend after the acquisition of the 113-year-old newspaper and its media assets by China’s internet giant, Alibaba Group.