The newspaper launched against a poor economy and a competitive Chinese-language newspaper market. Political uncertainties from Lai's criticisms of the Chinese government also made media analysts pessimistic about the future of "Apple Daily". Before "Apple Daily" was first published, it launched a television advertisements that portrayed Lai with an apple on his head being a shooting target for its competitors. In the first month of publication, the newspaper gave out coupons to reduce the price in effect to $2, despite the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong standardising the retail price of Hong Kong newspapers to $5 per issue. The price was returned to $5 after a month, but the newspaper began giving out T-shirts and coloured posters. The free publicity allowed "Apple Daily" to sell 200,000 copies on its first day and become the newspaper with the second highest circulation in Hong Kong.