Condé Nast chief: up to 40% of sales could be on iPad

Some interesting thoughts from Condé Nast chief Nicholas Coleridge on just where they think the future lies for publishers.

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This article titled “Condé Nast chief: up to 40% of sales could be on iPad” was written by Mark Sweney, for theguardian.com on Wednesday 15th September 2010 11.48 UTC

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.

Coleridge, addressing about 300 senior executives, journalists, agencies and advertisers on the publisher’s digital strategy today, also said Condé Nast’s UK operation planned to launch its first iPad apps within the next month for Wired and Vogue magazines.

The iPad apps will be launched for the December issues of Wired and Vogue magazines, which are published in November, with the pricing set to be £3.99 each. This is close to the cover price of each title: Wired sells for £4 and Vogue £4.10.

Coleridge said he believed that 15 years from now Condé Nast, which also publishes titles including GQ, Vanity Fair and Glamour, expected 30% to 40% of consumers of its titles to pay to read them on devices such as the iPad.

“I would expect 70% of our sales to come from print and 30%, or even 40%, to come from products such as the iPad,” he said.

Conde Nast has already launched half a dozen iPad apps in the US market but is yet to make a move in the UK.

“We don’t want to get into selling our content cheaper on the internet,” said Coleridge, speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk after the event.

The company said 18% of readers of the UK version of Wired magazine, which has a circulation of 50,000, already own an iPad.

Condé Nast will be launching the first two iPad apps as a “one-off”, according to Albert Read, the company’s general manager. There will then be a break of at least three months to test the products before any more apps are launched.

“It [apps development] is a work in progress where the end result will stand or fall on user experience,” Read said.

Coleridge added that Condé Nast had launched 36 apps, mostly for the Apple iPhone, across its international business so far this year.

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