Economist reveals digital edition subscribers

Lucia Moses of Adweek writes Monday about The Economist and its digital edition subscribers.

Moses writes, “In addition to the print circulation stats that are in every magazine’s ABC Publisher’s Statement, The Economist’s CMR reveals that its digital edition averaged about 48,000 in sales for March—about 6 percent of total circulation, putting it at the high end of magazines. There were 255,000 readers. At $105 for an annual subscription, the digital edition commands a premium as the print does.

“Figures are for North America only. They refer to editions sold on the iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. They exclude The Economist’s replica editions that are sold on the Kindle Fire and Nook Color and Zinio subscriptions.

“‘What we wanted to do in putting it out is have some transparency,’ said Paul Rossi, managing director and evp, Americas, for The Economist. ‘No one is requiring them, but there is a lot of grumbling that [magazines] aren’t transparent and we aren’t giving them the information the agencies want.’

“Rossi shared other digital details not included in the report. He said that 70 percent of The Economist’s digital subscribers are not former print subscribers and that 20 percent of The Economist’s single copy sales are of back issues — evidence that digital platforms are expanding rather than cannibalizing the reader base.”

Read more here.