AXEL SPRINGER SE 
By 03.08.11
Early results of Axel Springer’s premium initiative are positive: BILD and DIE WELT are selling more than 108,000 and almost 17,000 digital issues, respectively, per day / Findings of the iPad Panel show that people are using digital content intensively, investing more than 100 Euros in apps, on averageA little more than one and a half years after the start of its premium initiative to establish paid content offerings in the mobile and stationary Internet, Axel Springer is reporting positive early results. Journalistic media brands like BILD and DIE WELT are being used intensively, especially on the new mobile terminal devices like smartphones and tablet PCs; the digital issues of these two brands are selling more than 108,000 (BILD) and 17.000 (DIE WELT) issues per day, across all platforms.
Despite the fact that iPads are not yet widespread in Germany, more than 54 percent of DIE WELT’s digital offerings of (9,132 sales per day) and more than 16 percent of BILD’s digital offerings (17,492 sales per day) are being purchased by users as apps for the tablet PC. Recent studies suggest that the number of tablet PCs in Germany will quadruple, from roughly 2.5 million this year to nearly 10 million by the end of 2014.
Georg Konjovic, Director Premium Content at Axel Springer AG: “These new numbers are like an early snapshot of a longer-term development; and they present a mixed picture, to be sure. First of all, they make it clear that digital sales are still low, in absolute terms, and still far removed from the print numbers, but considering the current market penetration of PC tablets, they are still very promising. They give us good reason to press forward with our paid-content initiative. Tablet PCs in particular provide an outstanding platform for high-quality journalistic content; and the fact that users are willing to pay for such content is great news, considering the strong growth that is expected to occur in this market.”
Journalistic media offerings as revenue drivers
In addition to the two big newspaper brands BILD and DIE WELT, Axel Springer’s magazine and regional brands are also generating positive sales numbers. The world’s biggest automotive magazine AUTO BILD sells almost 3,000 digital copies per issue, while HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT and BERLINER MORGENPOST are generating daily sales of more than 3,100 and 1,000, respectively. And the apps for COMPUTER BILD SPIELE and the digital lifestyle magazine The ICONIST, which were developed specifically for the iPad, regularly post impressive sales. The appeal of Axel Springer’s journalistic media brands is evident in the sales rankings in the Apple App Store, in which the apps of BILD, DIE WELT, iKIOSK and AUTO BILD have consistently been among the ten best-selling apps in Germany.
A study conducted by Axel Springer Media Impact shows that newspapers and magazines are increasingly being read on the iPad
A new study by Axel Springer Media Impact, the central marketing unit of Axel Springer, indicates that tablet PCs like the iPad are especially well suited for journalistic content. The findings of the market research conducted in the spring of 2011 (iPad Panel) also indicate that more than half of iPad owners (52 percent) use even more journalistic content after having purchased a tablet PC. The daily time spent using Axel Springer’s digital media offerings is significantly higher than the usual online usage time, which is generally a few minutes, and is clearly more in line with the more intensive print usage (BILD HD: 25 minutes per issue, WELT HD: 33 minutes per issue, AUTO BILD HD: 69 minutes per issue). The iPad Panel also found impressive evidence that users of mobile terminal devices are willing to pay for content: On average, such users invest more than €100 per year in apps, the majority of which in the attractive journalistic products of Axel Springer’s media brands.
