China’s Tom Group CEO Tang Meijuan Resigns
The Hong Kong-headquartered Chinese online and mobile media group Tom Group announced its 2007 financial results, and the once-profitable company is now operating at a loss and Tom Group Limited CEO Tang Meijuan, in the position for the last five years. has resigned due to “personal reasons”. Operating Director Yang Mengguo will become the new CEO.
TOM’s revenues were 2.68 billion HK dollars ($347 million) in 2007, down 4.2 percent from the year before. In 2007, TOM’s losses were 297 million HK dollars ($38 million) compared to a profit of 32 million HK dollars ($4.1 million) in the prior year. The losses in 2007 were mainly due to a drop in mobile-valued added services (MVAS) revenues as the top 2 Chinese carriers, China Mobile and China Unicom, placed new restrictions on MVAS providers. More details in the releases here and here.
The losses included an HK$127 million impairment charge in its digital business after the mobile operators changed their policies, which hurt all MVAS players in China. It also lost HK$104 million from Tom Eachnet, an online auction venture with Ebay in China.