Early in the morning, you are having tea with your favorite sports magazine’s new issue in your hand. Suddenly you come across an article which is having reference to the magazine published in 2015. You are curious to know whether the information given in the current magazine is true or not. You started searching for that issue in your home but it’s not there in your collection. Now, you picked up your phone and started googling for the right information but still no success. Some random blogs are giving contradictory results so you are more confused.
What if you have a platform where all the previous issues of your favorite magazine are digitally available to access instantly. Simply log in to that platform and access what you want. Magzter is such a platform that can solve such problems within a few minutes for you.
The last decade of 2020 has witnessed a decline in sales of magazines and the readership. Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishanan converted this cheerless situation into a startup through technology.
In 2000, Ramdas started a software development portal Dot Com Infoway(DCI). Radhakrishnan used to provide services to DCI through his own company NTS. in 2005, they merged both companies to make a single company DCI. Radhakrishnan became the Chief Technical Officer of DCI.
Three years later, they participated in an event conducted by Apple Inc about an application platform. They understood the need for applications and found a division DCI mobile studio totally dedicated to application platforms under DCI. They designed application platforms for the AR Rehman Music portal and also developed an application platform for IPL 2010.
At that time, the Tamil movie base was getting popular so they decided to make a Tamil cinema magazine app ‘Galatta’ for Tamil movie lovers. The app was also available for NRI through mobiles. This app became an instant hit and more clients started requesting similar apps for their businesses and publication houses.
Then, one fine day at morning jogging time, Ramdas(Co-founder, CEO) and Radhakrishnan(Co-founder, President) came up with the idea of Magzter, a common digital platform for all magazines for tablets and mobile phones. With a technical team from DCI, they immediately started working on the platform. And finally, Magzter was launched in June 2011 with 35 magazines.
Magzter not only converted the magazines from print to digital media, but they also published the digital version of magazines for those publishers who have no money for printing the magazines. Independent content creators were also given space over Magzter to publish their written articles.
Magzter digital newsstand can be downloaded free from Google Play Store, iOS store, and Windows store for mobile, tablet, and computer use.
Initially, publishers were a little hesitant to publish their magazines over Magzter but when they came to know the zero cost of using the platform, they happily agreed for global exposure. Magzter only charged the fee when a user subscribed to a magazine. Currently, Magzter also started publishing worldwide newspapers and the selected stories from books/magazines.
The company received a total funding of $13 Million as series A and B funding in 2012-13. In the same year, Magzter also became the number one free app on the iOS store for iPads in Asia.
Magzter was still unknown to the big publishers throughout the world. The company shifted its head office to Newyork for better exposure and credibility. Strategically, their office was located nearby to the big publishers like Time, Bloomberg, Newsweek, etc.
Currently, Magzter has more than 70 Million users with more than 10000 magazines and newspapers across 45+ categories and 60+ languages. Girish who is also known as Magazine Man is having a dream to make Magzter- the youtube of reading.
Magzter Gold is one of the popular subscription plans of the company. Currently, this plan is available on a $49.99 per year investment. Through this plan, a user can access 5000+ Magzter magazines and curated premium stories.
Currently, Magzter is having 130+ employees. The company had $1.5+ Million in revenue in 2019. The company has crossed 50+ Million downloads. And with its online presence, Magzter has saved 2,50000+ trees and natural resources.
The company is also accepting innovative technological ideas to expand its presence. They have started a Smart Reading Zone(SRZ) service for Airports, Hospitals, Apartments, Gyms, Countries, hotels, companies, universities, and other different types of organizations. Through SRZ, the selected zone will provide unlimited access to 5000+ Magzter Gold Magazines and curated premium stories. Through SRZ, the company will also provide branding opportunities for SRZ subscriber organizations.
On February 05, 2019, Magzter tied up with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation(IRCTC). Under the agreement, Magzter will provide the discounted subscription to railway passengers and it will also provide a 7 days free trial package. On the basis of subscription duration and the included services, the subscription range is between Rs 20 to Rs 499.
