Next Digital Limited provided group earnings guidance for the six months ended September 30, 2017. For the period, the company informed the shareholders of the company and potential investors that based on the financial information currently available, the group expects to record an increase in loss of approximately 15% for the six months ended 30 September 2017. After excluding the payment in lieu of notice for the period under review of HKD 8.1 million (six months ended 30 September 2016: HKD 37.8 million), the loss would increase by approximately 45% for the period under review as compared to the corresponding period in last year. Such an increase in loss for the six months ended 30 September 2017 was mainly attributable to the poor market sentiment and cautious advertisement spending driven by slow economic growth in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the period under review, which led to a decline in advertising spending together with keen global competition of online programmatic advertising income. Also closely associated to this decrease was the drop in circulation income of the Group's publications due to readers' preference of free online media over printed properties.