How many magazines are being sold on tablets?

I’ve been away from the digital magazine world for a half year, and have just started to dive back in. What do I find? Distressingly little information about the digital magazine industry, a plethora of tablets with software all doing different things, and strategies that couldn’t be further apart for taking advantage of this nascent industry.

For those of you who find yourself in my situation, but with a bit less time to delve into these things, I will be presenting the facts as I uncover them in this and upcoming blogs.

In this blog: How many magazines are being sold on the tablets?

This seems like it would be an elementary question, one covered far and wide. But, my research tells me that this information does not exist out there in any accessible way. So, how did I compile it? Remember when you used to have to count on your fingers to figure out things? That’s basically what I did. I went to three different tablets, found digital magazines, and added them up.

Here’s what it looks like more or less today (counts were all made in January 2013)

Third Place: Nexus Google Play Magazine Store

Nexus sold 3 million tablets from July to October 2012. One of the newer tablets on the market, it comes in last place for number of magazines listed for sale at 446. Largest category: Sports! Nexus also has an app called “currents” where you can browse blogs with magazine names for free (more on that next week). There are 759 as of Jan. 11 in that bunch.

TOTAL : 446

1. Sports 66
2. Automotive 54
3. Women's Lifestyle 52
4. Entertainment 42
5. Home & Garden 39
6. Arts & Photography 32
7. Science & Tech 30
8. Crafts & Hobbies 23
9. Health& Fitness 20
10. Special Interest 19
11. Food & Drink 15
12. Business and Finance 12
13. News& Politics 12
14. Parenting & Family 12
15. Men's Lifestyle 10
16. Travel 8

Second Place: Amazon Kindle Magazines

Kindle of course came out first with an ereader in black and white only. The mini-computer color tablet was unveiled in September 2011. As of October 2012, there were 7 million Kindle Fires sold. Kindle has 744 magazines listed from their ebook selection, with the largest category, at 273, being Lifestyle and Culture.

TOTAL : 744

1. Life Style & Culture 273
2. Arts & Entertainments 167
3. Sports 111
4. News, Politics & Opinions 60
5. Regional & Travel 45
6. Business 42
7. Internet & Technology 33
8. Science 13

First Place: iPad Newsstand

Both the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7 have a ways to go to catch up to the iPad, which has sold almost 100 million units globally since launching in April of 2010. (See accompanying graph)

In addition, Apple has an app specifically designed for magazines and newspapers called Apple Newsstand. So it should be no shock that they have the most magazines listed of any tablet device at 2,954 as of Jan. 4, 2013.

What’s their top category? Business & Investing, at 445 magazines. Not surprising, given corporations’ love affair with the iPad. Business Insider says more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are reportedly testing or deploying them.

TOTAL: 2954

1. Business & Investing 445
2. Entertainment 438
3. Fashion & Style 415
4. Auto 265
5. Health, Mind, & Body 234
6. Computers & Internet 225
7. Home & Garden 212
8. Arts & Photography 188
9. Crafts & Hobbies 176
10. Cooking, Food, & Drink 135
11. Children 70
12. Electronics & Auto 67
13. Brides 45
14. History 39

Next week: What does this mean in terms of $ for these companies?