This October Condé Nast is launching its Traveller magazine in India as it looks to capitalise on the country’s luxury surge.
The number of affluent consumers in India is growing at break-neck speed and they are spending more than ever before on automobiles, watches, jewellery and the like. Condé Nast has already been tapping this segment of the market with the launch of Vogue in India in 2007 followed by GQ in 2008, and now they believe the time has come to focus on luxury travel.
Condé Nast’s Mr Kuruvilla said the group was catering to the top end of the market, defined as households with an income of more than $100,000, which represents about two million households in India.
According to Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management’s World Wealth Report 2010, India’s population of wealthy individuals (with net assets of $1 million or more) grew by 50.9 per cent last year, a rate of growth second only to Hong Kong.
Consequently more and more high-end lifestyle magazines are entering the market every year, as KPMG explained in a recent report: “The interest in niche and speciality magazines is driven by changing socio-economic and demographic profile in India with increasing purchasing power among certain sections of the population.”
Traveller will start with a print run of about 15,000 per bimonthly editions.
Condé Nast has also announced that it will open a Vogue Café restaurant in Mumbai next year.
(Source: FT)