The newly merged bookstore brought together all the names of its previous entities (Chinese: 生活書店、讀書出版社、新知書店三聯書店), but was often referred to in English as SDX Joint Publishing, taking the first initial of each of the previous names to form an acronym, or simply Sanlian Press or Joint Publishing (Chinese: 三聯書店; pinyin: Sānlián shūdiàn).

Shortly after it was formed, it moved its headquarters to Beijing in March 1949 and established its Hong Kong–based subsidiary.

With several re-locations, it finally settled in current premises in Queen Victoria Street in May 1971 and opened a retail store at the ground floor in July 1974.

It initially targeted in Chinese culture, literature and art and later concentrated Hong Kong topics and social science.

Its direction was proved successful and the book store aggressively opened branches in Hong Kong.