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Where Print Still Makes Sense: Business Publications Are Booming in India
Posted by naatmad on Friday, 30 May, 2008
A business daily is apparently good business in India. Though The Economic Times is the clear leader, India’s rapid economic growth has encouraged a sixth national contender. The emergence of small-town and rural India has similarly encouraged Hindi and other-language ventures. And what is happening in newspapers is being repeated in magazines.
In April, the Financial Chronicle, from the Hyderabad-based Deccan Chronicle group, joined the contest, starting with editions in Hyderabad and Chennai with a print run of 70,000. That is less than a tenth of the circulation of The Economic Times. But India’s changing demographics, and lower production costs than elsewhere in the world, make the economics of even a small business daily promising.
In most mature markets there is a single leader, whether it’s the Financial Times in the United Kingdom or The Wall Street Journal in the United States. That is the case in India, too. The Economic Times had average net paid sales of 750,621 in the July-December 2007 period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Business Standard was a distant second with 170,378 and The Hindu Business Line was third at 146,925. Two others, The Financial Express and Mint — the product of a Hindustan Times-Wall Street Journal tie-up — did not participate in the ABC audits. Mint started in February 2007 with an initial print order of around 80,000. Source Knowledge@Wharton
