Man with iPad
Credit: C. Regina on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Professional Publishers Association today reported that tablet devices are "reinvigorating the appetite for magazine media", adding that "digital editions should not be seen as a replacement to print".

In a release the PPA said its Tablets and Publishing Report aims to provide an overview "of the tablet market and its future potential for magazine media".

The findings – which will be shared with members - draw on "both propriety PPA research conducted in partnership with Tolunaquick and draws from a large selection of international studies".

One of the key findings was that tablets appear to "reinvigorate owners' appetite to try different brands". According to the report 68 per cent of tablet users said they "have read newspapers or magazines on a tablet that they had not previously read in print".

There was also found to be a "positive correlation between print and tablet readership" with 96 per cent of tablet users having read a print magazine in the past year.

"A number of studies suggest that digital editions are reinvigorating the appetite for magazine media and this has been confirmed by our own research," head of research at PPA Marius Cloete said in the release.

"Tablet owners are more likely to have read and purchased printed magazines in the previous three months than the national average, dispelling the myth that tablet owners are abandoning print in favour or digital. The two platforms instead appear to be working in combination to expand consumers' reading repertoire."

The PPA also refers to the fact that 25 per cent of titles within the Audit Bureau of Circulation are now said to be reporting a result for tablets.

ABC's latest results for consumer magazines reported that Future Publishing's technology gadget magazine T3 recorded the highest average digital circulation of more than 17,000 downloads of its tablet edition issues in the first half of the year.

Future reported its results for the iPad edition separately to the ABC digital editions analysis, on which Cosmopolitan magazine was highest with a monthly average of more than 13,000.

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