Wired UK now on iPad

Tech bible Wired, has launched an iPad version of it’s UK version.

Wired UK has finally unveiled its iPad, the £2.39 download version is out alongside its December print edition priced at £3.99. The mag will be a one-off to test the market and if it works they may make it monthly.

The US iPad version of Wired launched earlier this year and did a very creditable 100,000 downloads in it’s first-month, 24,000 of them sold on the first day at $4.99. However it’s doubtful if the UK version will do as well, and so lucratively – and that goes for the US where it’s now just $3.99 per issue.

According to Wired’s publishers Condé Nast 18% of Wired UK readers own an iPad, so sales to current customers (circulation is around 50K) could hit around 9,000 downloads. However many of those 18% will already be subscribers to the print product.

New print magazines traditionally always sell more on their first edition – there’s a big market in rare first editions and everyone wants to be the person with the mint version, a copy of the first edition of Superman sold for just short of £1 million in March this year – however, it’s very doubtful that the same first issue market will exist for the digital market. Additionally the US issues of Wired are now selling substantially fewer copies than 100,000 as the novelty has worn off and there are more magazines available on the iPad.

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