Conde Nast said Monday it has attracted 242,000 customers for iPad editions of its titles in the firs six weeks after launching in May. The bulk of the digital
sign-ups—136,000—have come from print subscribers adding the iPad app version at no extra cost. Besides new digital subscriptions, the total also includes single-copy sales. “The digital counts are increasing every day, and while this represents a small portion of our subscription circulation, we find it incredibly promising,
especially given the short time we have been marketing subscriptions,” said Monica Ray, EVP, consumer marketing at Conde Nast, in a statement.
Apple in February rolled out a subscription model for the iPad and other devices, but some initially publishers balked at conditions including Apple’s 30% cut of sales and control
over subscriber data. Conde Nast began offering subscriptions via the App Store in May for eight titles: Allure, Glamour, Golf Digest, GQ, Self, The New Yorker, Wired, andVanity
Fair.
Since introducing the first digital edition of GQ in November 2009, Condé Nast has had nearly a million paid downloads of its digital
magazine editions on Apple devices, Barnes & Noble's Nook Color, and the Kindle.