Just two weeks after announcing a $50 million dollar round of funding, mobile news reader Flipboard revealed growth numbers that may explain investors' eagerness to get behind it.
The company now claims 90 million users, a jump from the 85 million Flipboard CEO Mike McCue confirmed early last month, and a leap from the 53 million the company announced in April. Flipboard said is users now flip a total of 7 billion pages per month, a 1 billion pageview per month increase from just six months ago.
While traditional publishers such as The New York Times, Esquire and Vanity Fair were noted by Flipboard as being among its top ten publishers, the company also highlighted another group propelling the growth forward -- brands. Lexus, Levis, Samsung, Cisco and Target were all featured in an infographic containing the numbers above, and were deemed by Flipboard to be the most engaging brands upon it.
The brand magazines -- which are made up of content curated or produced by brands themselves -- can generate up to 40 flips from a user visit, according to Flipboard. The company also said its users subscribe to each brand magazine they land on at rate of 10%. The numbers are key in assessing Flipboard's long term revenue potential, as the brands, while publishing on Flipboard, also pay to promote their magazines within its ecosystem.
In a recent visit to Ad Age, Flipboard's Mr. McCue told Ad Age deputy managing editor Michael Learmonth that the company hopes to sell display ads for print rates, giving content a better business model on mobile devices. Check out the video of that interview below:
The Infographic:
