TOM Group Limited () is a

Chinese-language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

media company Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information e ...

in the

Greater China Greater China is an informal geographical area that shares commercial and cultural ties with the Han Chinese people. The notion of "Greater China" refers to the area that usually encompasses Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan in East ...

region, with business interests across markets in

Mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater Chin ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. Its business covers four media sectors, Internet (

TOM Online TOM Online is a mobile Internet company in China, operating the popular Chinese-language Internet portal (www.tom.com) and offering a variety of online and mobile services, including wireless internet and online advertising. It is a subsidiary of ...

), Outdoor (TOM Outdoor Media Group), Publishing, and Television and Entertainment. In 2008, TOM Group was crowned In-House of the Year - Media & Entertainment In-House Team of the Year at the ''2008 ALB Hong Kong Law Awards''.

History

The TOM Group was founded in October 1999 as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between

Cheung Kong Cheung Kong (Holdings) Limited, is a multinational conglomerate, based in Hong Kong. It was one of Hong Kong's leading multi-national conglomerates. The company merged with its subsidiary Hutchison Whampoa on 3 June 2015, as part of a majo ...

– Hutchison Group, Solina Chau and other investors. In March 2000, it was listed on the

Growth Enterprise Market Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) () is a board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong for growth companies that do not fulfill the requirements of profitability or track record for the main board of the exchange. Opened 1999. GEM operates on the philoso ...

(ticker symbol: 8001). The Group has subsequently transferred its listing to the Main Board of the

Stock Exchange of Hong Kong The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. As of the end of 2020, it has 2,538 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of HK$47 trillion. It is repo ...

(ticker symbol: 2383).

Operations

Headquartered in

, the Group has regional offices in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

and

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...

and operating bases in about twenty cities.

Technology

The portal has been upgraded and is transitioning to a tool- and user-centric widgetised open platform. TOM's wireless division serves a wireless user base of some 400 million people, offering a range of products and services including

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

MMS MMS may refer to: Science and technology Network communication protocols * Multimedia Messaging Service for mobile phones * Microsoft Media Server, a content-streaming protocol (mms://) * Manufacturing Message Specification for real time proces ...

, WAP, IVR, RBT, and

Java ME Java Platform, Micro Edition or Java ME is a computing platform for development and deployment of portable code for embedded and mobile devices (micro-controllers, sensors, gateways, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, TV set-top ...

. TOM has acquired the exclusive rights to operate the official

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United ...

websites in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The NBA official site in the Mainland was launched in October 2008 with live broadcast of games and various social networking features for sports fans to communicate, interact and share. In addition, through TOM-Skype, a joint venture with

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, ...

, the Company offered

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

software that allows mainland Chinese users to communicate using IM, voice and video. However, Microsoft terminated the contract in 2013. Also under the internet division is a

C2C Trenitalia c2c Limited,Companies House extract company no 789726 ...

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...

platform TOM

Eachnet eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

. In June 2014, TOM group also invested in a Hong Kong

fintech Fintech, a portmanteau of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data are ...

player, WeLab, which is a company that operates online lending platforms in

and China.

Publishing

TOM Group publishing arm has developed into a publishing platform in Greater China. In Taiwan, a total of 40 publishers are consolidated under Cite Publishing Holding Group. Over 60 magazine titles with annual printing volume exceeding 29 million copies; a total of 5 new magazines on computer, digital related and lifestyle genres were launched. More than 2,000 new book titles; and the annual printing volume reached to 19 million copies; a total catalogue of 14,000 titles out of which 400 more were licensed for local production by publishers in Mainland China.

References

* Leung, H. "Forms snapped up in two hours; Stampede as tom.com goes public," Hong Kong Standard, 19 February 2000.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tom Group CK Hutchison Holdings Companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Publishing companies of Hong Kong Online companies of China Chinese companies established in 1999