Press release -
READLY TO CHANGE THE GAME IN UK DIGITAL MAGAZINE PUBLISHING
London, February 13th
2014: Dubbed as “The New Way to Read”, Readly announces its official entry
into the UK today with backing from the publishing industry. The digital app,
offering an “all-you-can-read” magazine service, will give consumers unlimited
access to as many magazines as they want from a wide range of global publishers
for a low subscription of just £9.99 per month.
Having launched successfully in 2012 in its home market of Sweden and in the USA last year Readly will roll out to UK consumers in March and globally through the rest of the year.
With a deep understanding of the publishing and software industries, Readly has been designed to complement publishers’ existing digital channels while bringing unique, new benefits to the marketplace. Readly streamlines the digital publishing process by utilising the same files that are already prepared for print versions of magazines allowing publishers to expand their consumer outreach with no additional infrastructure. Moreover, evidence from Sweden indicates there is only a 2% overlap between Readly and publishers’ own customer data suggesting a vast opportunity for new customer acquisition.
Innovative analytics (exclusive to Readly) will also provide publishers with invaluable data that can unlock new business and revenue enhancement opportunities. Its cloud-based back office system supports publishers’ business needs by providing a seamless system to update their publications around the clock.
Ranj Begley, Readly UK’s MD said, “Readly offers an additional revenue stream, general profile-raising and really granular consumer insight. It is a win-win model for everyone. The publishers we have spoken to so far have been really excited by the service.”
Figures from the PPA, the UK magazine industry’s trade association, suggest that digital magazine sales still account for fewer than 2% of total paid-for copy sales even though the penetration of tablets and smartphones has exploded. Consumer subscription models have already proven to work in the music and film industries and the PPA believes Readly could bring digital magazines to a much larger audience.
“Readly will offer UK consumers a new proposition for magazines; one which we believe will add real scale and presence to what publishers are already doing themselves individually”, said Barry McIlheney, CEO of the PPA. “We are delighted that Readly has come to the UK and we welcome them as our key digital partner for the year ahead.”
To find out more about Readly UK, visit uk.readly.com
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Related links
Topics
- Technology, general
Categories
- app
- reading
- reading activities
- digital magazines
- download
- magazine app
- magazine
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Readly UK
READLY UK Ltd is the UK subsidiary of READLY INTERNATIONAL AB, a privately owned company head quartered in Sweden. Formed in 2012, the company currently employs over 30 people in four countries (Sweden, USA, Germany and the UK), deals with 80 publishers, promotes 300 magazine brands and holds 3,000 issues of these magazines for consumers to buy. The company’s founder, Joel Wikell, achieved success in the online gaming industry with Casino.com. He applied his technical know-how to brief a team to create the READLY app which was a year in development before going live in Sweden in Spring 2013. The company has ambitious plans to roll the service out across Europe and a number of other territories over the next year.
About the Readly app
Once installed (on to up to five devices per subscriber), the app provides access to as many issues, both current and back issues, as readers want to download on to their devices for just £9.99 per month. The digital magazines are deconstructed from publisher PDF print files and are automatically reconstructed into an advanced PDF format which provides ultra-fast downloading, simple and consistent navigation across all the magazines, together with advanced zoom, bookmark, search and sharing functions. The app can be used on a range of devices and operating systems including IoS, Android, Windows 8 and Kindle Fire. Subscribers can start reading 5 seconds into a download which takes an average 30 seconds on a fast internet connection (or 2 minutes using 3G). Users’ behaviours are tracked in order distribute revenues to each publisher based on the number of pages read and the time spent on each page. This data also provides publishers with deep insights into how their content is being consumed.
