Josh Ong
The company released a press release noting that, since Newsstand was released on Oct. 12, new subscription sales for all nine digital editions of its titles have gone up 268 percent, while single copy sales are up 142 percent, as compared to the previous eight weeks.
“We couldn’t be happier,†said Executive Vice President Monica Ray. “It’s clear that the focused attention and greater discoverability Newsstand provides our brands has been embraced by the consumer. While we recognize the spike in sales is in part fueled by the attention the launch received, we are very optimistic that we will see a consistently higher level of growth going forward than we did prior to the app’s introduction.â€
Newsstand is a new application in iOS 5 that acts as a folder for magazine and newspaper subscriptions. The app automatically downloads new content and alerts the user. It also offers access to a specific subscriptions section of the App Store.
The nine titles currently available on the iPad include: Allure, Brides Glamour, Self, GQ, Golf Digest, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired. Three additional titles, Condé Nast Traveler, Bon Appétit and Vogue, are scheduled to launch on the iPad by early 2012.
The sales boost should give much-needed momentum to digital subscriptions on the iPad. In April, a report claimed that the publisher was "tapping the brakes" on its iPad editions as it waited for the market to mature. Condé Nast adopted Apple's in-app subscription feature this summer.
The publisher said last month that its monthly digital circulation has reached 500,00, including 225,000 digital-only subscribers. Meanwhile, rival publisher Hearst announced in September that paid downloads of its digital titles across several platforms had topped 300,000 per month.
Apple unveiled the Newsstand feature in June as part of the first public preview of iOS 5 at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
Software giant Adobe has announced that it will add support for Newsstand to its Digital Publishing Suite. The company boasts that the suite has been used to create more than 600 titles for the iPad, Google Android tablets and Research in Motion's PlayBook.
Bon Adamson
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
AppleInsider Staff
Amber Neely
16 Comments
To be expected. People mocked Newsstand as 'meh', but it was a genius move, and predictably will increase both usage and discoverability of this category of apps.
To be expected. People mocked Newsstand as 'meh', but it was a genius move, and predictably will increase both usage and discoverability of this category of apps.
Totally agree. When I was running iOS 5 beta, I had a folder called "Useless Apps" in which I had News Stand and iTunes (both of which cannot be removed from the iPad and both of which were no use to me as I cannot buy music from iTunes).
However, within days of iOS 5 going live, I found a lot of interesting magazines that I could browse through. True, I feel most of them are overpriced, but the free back issue is a good enough indicator of whether it is worth buying future issues.
Of course, I prefer the option to buy issues I want to, rather than a subscription that allows me access to all issues within the subscription period.
All in all, I think News stand is a neat little app and a nice addition to the iPad.
To be expected. People mocked Newsstand as 'meh', but it was a genius move, and predictably will increase both usage and discoverability of this category of apps.
Agree as well. I hardly ever went on the look out for a magazine or something, but now with Newsstand I am somehow enticed to download a few mags.
Agree as well. I hardly ever went on the look out for a magazine or something, but now with Newsstand I am somehow enticed to download a few mags.
That's just because that blank newstand is staring you in the face if you don't.
App store shows lots of complaints about Conde Nast magazines ranging from buggy to feature-poor to poor subscription model etc. I think it will eventually be indispensable, but right now it's not ready for prime time. At least when considering the content providers. Presumably someone will come along and show everyone else how it's supposed to be done, hopefully sooner rather than later.