Popular Holdings

Popular Holdings (Chinese: 大众书局) , commonly called Popular, is a Singapore-based company that publishes, distributes, and retails books for the local education market. It has subsidiaries in countries such as Canada, the People's Republic of China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Republic of China. In the financial year 2005, it had a net profit of S$10.6 million, on a turnover of S$360 million. The first Popular Bookstore was set up in 1936 by Chou Sing Chu in North Bridge Road, focusing on retailing Chinese books and stationery. In March 2006, Popular Holdings was one of the organisers of Bookfest@Singapore, the first Chinese-language book fair ever held outside of China. Popular was founded in 1924 as the Cheng Hing Company, established by the late Chou Sing Chu in 1924, during the boom time of the Chinese book business, in the busy port of Tanjong Pagar. It soon evolved from the World Book Company in the early 1930s. During that time, it engaged in the distribution and publishing of... full article at wikipedia