In the past month, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes have raised their presence in the market, while in late June The Economist posted a 37 per cent increase in circulation to 23,183.
Government restrictions limited the market for years - most titles still only have permission for facsimile versions rather than India-specific editions. Forbes and Fortune are two of the exceptions. Forbes, which tied up with Network 18, has already rolled out a local edition with a print run of 70,000, while Fortune, which has partnered with Kolkata-based APB, is set to start publishing in the next few months.
Government restrictions limited the market for years - most titles still only have permission for facsimile versions rather than India-specific editions. Forbes and Fortune are two of the exceptions. Forbes, which tied up with Network 18, has already rolled out a local edition with a print run of 70,000, while Fortune, which has partnered with Kolkata-based APB, is set to start publishing in the next few months.
It has been tougher for newspapers. The Financial Times, which has wanted to enter India for some time, recently resolved legal tangles over its title and is finally being launched. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, recently began daily printing in India after launching an India.wsj.com site.
The country’s booming business class is behind the plethora of launches. “Obviously India is a very attractive market. The Indian economy is growing at a fast pace, at about five per cent, and the media market in still growing, so we are very excited to be there,” says William Adamopoulos, president and publisher of Forbes Asia.
Surprio Guha Thakurta, The Economist’s MD for India, says that by 2025, India will have 24 million citizens classed as ‘wealthy’, more than the current population of Australia. In fact, so huge are subscription opportunities, she adds, that India could well become the third largest market for The Economist after the US and UK.
Ashish Bhasin, Southeast Asia CEO of Aegis Media, agrees that there are opportunities, though he is not sure how big they are. He points out that a subscription of 100,000 will be considered niche in a populous country like India. “The opportunity is primarily because of the global perspective these magazines bring. Right now there is a huge interest in India globally, and Indians are very interested in global affairs. But these business titles are still very high-end niche titles. It will take some time for them to enter a mass interest area.”
A challenge to the growth of these titles will be aggressive competition from local business publications. Sources in India say that Indian consumers look for good quality at an affordable price and are not necessarily won over by the heritage of a magazine. Adamopoulos agrees that as a magazine entering the mainstream Indian market it will face competition from “strong” Indian magazines, but points to its partnership with local operator Network 18 as a way to combat that.
Thakurta, however, insists that a global focus, rather than a focus on India first, will be of interest to “the ever-growing tribe of global Indians”. The big question, however, is whether this tribe will be big enough to attract serious ad dollars. “Two things are important for advertisers, quantity and quality,” concludes Bhasin.
“So if there are high circulation numbers and the quality is good then it should be an option.”
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