Journalists at The Guardian are celebrating after nearly 70,000 people forked out £2.39 for its iPhone application in the first month after its release.
The popularity of the application has overshadowed the modest success of similar - free - applications launched by the Financial Times, Independent and Telegraph. The Independent's app has been downloaded only 59,000 times since August.
The appeal of the Guardian's iPhone offering is likely to be a combination of strong brand appeal and ease of use. Particularly the latter - the same content is available to all iPhone users free of charge, if only they are willing to use their device's inbuilt Safari browser.
Successful as the Guardian application is, it only proves that people are willing to buy a one-off program to read their news with. It does not suggest that readers are willing to pay for the content itself.
And that, surely, is what the newspaper will be hoping for. The Guardian and sister paper The Observer today reported a £57 million pre-tax loss - a fact that is certain to take the sheen off the comparitively miniscule profits generated by the iPhone app.
The story does underline the fact that successful mobile web design is key to attracting the growing audience of people who browse on the move. Contact us if you'd like to learn more.
