How Hong Kong's subway makes huge profits

What is the MTR?

Transport operation

Sources of profit

Station business

How profitable is the MTR?

Property business

Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation runs the most valuable metro railway in the world. In 2017 it banked US$2.2 billion (HK$17 billion) profit, more than enough to buy seven Boeing 777 jets.
The MTR Corp's rail system carries about 6 million commuters on average per weekday and has maintained service reliability at 99.9 per cent since 2008.
The MTR Corp's fare takings have grown by HK$6.5 billion over 10 years as passenger numbers have increased. This was while ticket price growth lagged behind the cost of living.
MTR stations host more than 1,400 shops and nearly 47,000 advertising units. The company charges rent as well as earning money from telecoms operators by allowing them to provide mobile network coverage inside the rail system.
The MTR Corp expands its rail network in partnership with the government, often gaining preferential access to land. Under the ‘concession approach’, the MTR pays the government for the right to run a railway built with public funding.
Another approach under private-public partnership is called the rail-plus-property business model, where the MTR Corp builds commercial and residential properties above new stations to fund railway expansion.
Revenue streams from fares, advertising and property development, as well as earnings from running transport systems outside Hong Kong, earn the MTR Corp a whopping profit 30 times that of its closest local competitor, bus company KMB.
Meanwhile, the government, which owns 76 per cent of the MTR’s shares, earns a proportion of profit from its business. In 2017, the government received HK$4.8 billion in dividends from the MTR Corp.