Magazines. Readly, the five-year-old Swedish-owned digital magazine app, has raised €10m in funding from new investor Swedbank Robur and existing funder Zouk Capital, of London. The Readly app for tablets and smartphones gives customers unlimited access (on up to four devices) to some 3,200 national and international magazines for a fixed monthly subscription of c£8. This year, Readly has added Switzerland to its ‘local’ markets of Sweden, UK, Germany and Austria. Readly is expected to have revenues in 2018 of £23m (some 75% up on the previous year and more than three times that of 2016). Revenue was split fairly evenly between Germany, Sweden and the UK with other countries accounting for less than 10%. The price appeal of Readly to consumers is clear enough, and the software is good, giving readers the magazine feel with easy zoom-in pages. Readly subscribers are thought to average something like 20 digital magazine sessions per month totalling about 7 hours’ reading time. Interesting from the viewpoint of publishers (some of which are still nervous about the possible Readly risk to full-price magazine subscriptions) is the finding that some 15% of reading takes place outside the native market of the magazine content. Readly likes to compare itself to Spotify but the really interesting time will be when/if readers are able to search for topics and content across large numbers of magazines rather than only within an individual brand. Publishers might worry about the potential erosion of magazine branding involved in that. But, with digital subscriptions one of the only growing sources of magazine revenue, the money will talk. It is also assumed that Readly could develop a range of services like its US counterpart Magzter which offers a “Lite” version for access to just five magazines. You could imagine subscriptions covering just the magazines of individual publishers or even groups of publishers. Or access just to magazines about, say, football or fashion. If Readly can keep up the growth rate, its business really will become mainstream for publishers rather than just useful ancillary revenue.
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Readly digital mags raises €10m to sustain growth
