Nicholas Coleridge, the managing director of Condé Nast UK, has predicted that in the future as many as 40% of the publisher’s sales will come from apps for Apple’s iPad and similar devices.
via guardian.co.uk.
up to 40% of sales could be on iPad
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{ 6 comments }
“The future” is a bit open-ended, no? I think you can file this one under vendor marketing drivel. The 30%-40% estimates are “safe.” It sends a message that Condé Nast is aware of the iPad and sees the potential market opportunity; but the company doesn’t want anyone to think pad devices will cannibalize their print revenue. This is a message made in PR heaven, not based on any real analysis.
There used to be a day when an editor would have thrown this story back in the reporters’ face with instructions to get some actual information before it can be published. Now crap like this passes for news. Sigh.
@Tom,
Sorry, I missed the paragraph where he said is 30%-40% estimates are for 15 years from now. Fifteen years is a long fucking time. The Internet, in its current form, barely existed 15 years ago. If this guy can make accurate market predictions 15 years in the future, he’s wasting his time at Condé Nast.
100% of death still caused by dying.
Inspired future thinking by Condé Nast. Once again they shock us with their forward thinking strategy and grasp of the future.
A £0.1 reduction in price for digital Vogue? What a joke.
The iPad is the perfect medium for ‘everyone’ to finally get ‘all’ the Vogues (British, Italian, Japanese etc.), but you have to pass on the savings you get from not having to print and ship huge, glossy books like they do now.
@Erik,
Clearly Condé Nast would like electronic distribution to be revenue neutral — i.e., people will pay the same price for either the electronic or print versions of a magazine. That’s delusional IMHO.
It raises an interesting question over what happens if Condé Nast is ultimately forced to price electronic copies of its magazines well below print copies? If the 30%-40% estimate is correct, that could result in a big hit to profitability — especially if Condé Nast intends to keep producing print copies of its magazines for the forseeable future.
Coleridge is trying to spin a message that paints a stable financial picture for Condé Nast looking forward — partially by “predicting” best case scenarios as market trends. Reality might turn out very different. It’s certainly possible that electronic distribution could net the big publishers a lot more subscribers, but at a lower incremental price, resulting in dramatically lower profitability.
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