[2011 FIPP Congress] Fresh from FIPP: Incredible India and ePublishing today

Rose Cohen: The first FIPP World Magazine Congress was held in Paris 38 years ago. Now, in 2011, it has made its way to India for the first time (or as Aroon Purie, chairman of FIPP, put it in his opening address: “It’s about time”).

India has 77 000 registered print publications, published in no less than seven languages. It’s a country of great diversity in both content and language and boasts 31% of global advertising spend.

But, despite these impressive figures, the true potential of the Indian media market remains as yet untapped. According to India’s minister of information and broadcasting, Ambika Soni, the way forward for media, and particularly magazines, is innovation, adaptation and expansion - especially into developing markets.

This theme of untapped potential and emerging markets was carried through into the first FIPP World Congress session on ePublishing and how online and mobile magazines are reinventing the future of magazine media. Ralph Buchi, of Axel Springer International in Germany, says that global mobile device sales are expected to grow 20% in five years to a total of about 1.4 billion eReaders by 2015.

This is good news, even to publishers whose core revenue lies in print. Tablet devices have paved the way for print products to access new users and readers. Research conducted by Axel Springer has shown little crossover between their print readers and their digital user groups. Not surprisingly, the web reader’s average age is 10 years younger than the print reader and the tablet reader is 16 years younger.

Neil Morgan, MD of McPheters & Company UK, quotes statistics on the market penetration of tablets. At launch, Apple sold three million iPads in a matter of days. Today there are 50 million iPads in circulation, a figure that is likely to grow to 63 million in three years.

Apps for publications on iPad number 792 worldwide, but most of these apps only offer flat, PDF-style reads and 40% of them still have significant glitches. Morgan says the focus must be on design, functionality and rich-media experiences if media owners are to win over more tablet readers and, in turn, advertisers.

Research into advertising on iPad apps reveals that users spend 64% more time on app ads, compared to print, and that they tend to view these ads as editorial content. This is according to Peo Strindlund, Europe and Asia VP of sales for Magplus in Sweden. Strindlund sees tablet trends moving towards streamlined production with creativity, reader-interaction, new business models and innovation as a priority.

“Technology is the evolution and consumption is the revolution,” says Strindlund. His conclusion is that the tablet market is like the early stages of a cricket game: we have no idea how it will all end. So let’s play!