Digital magazine subscription service, Readly, held its first Global Publishers Day in London last week bringing together industry leaders from across Europe to explore the future of digital magazines and the media in a wider digital world.

Maria Hedengren, CEO of Readly, discussed the continued appetite for magazines and Readly’s role in helping the consumer to re-discover magazines, fuelling the growth of the industry.

She said: “Our mission is to bring the magic of magazines into the future so that magazines can make the transition into the digital era and appeal to consumers long term as technology and consumer behaviour moves at pace. I strongly believe there's an increasing demand for curated and trusted content that is both entertaining, inspiring and educational. Together with publishers, we fulfill an important role to meet this demand.”

The keynote speaker, James Hardy, Former Head of Europe for Alibaba, now Co-Founder of Avenue 51, drew parallels with the e-commerce industry and Alibaba’s eco-system model of sharing success with all partners. He said: “The Amazon "platform" business model certainly creates value, however the Alibaba "ecosystem" shares the value with all parties.”

He added: “In a time of deep uncertainty and technological change, take part and try out new things as long as it doesn’t detract from your core business. Publishers seem to have a formidable range of skills and assets, yet we’re all players in an ecommerce world now. Move fast but with a clear strategy, make friends not foes and define your niche to leverage that position in every way possible. I see Readly as a potential ecosystem, creating shared value for publishers.”

Latest stats from Readly show that since launch in 2013, 450 million pages have been read via the app which equates to 90 million hours spent reading magazines and a third of readers engage with the app every day.

Ranj Begley, Chief Content Officer and UK MD of Readly said: “We are honoured to bring together thought leaders and brand owners across our markets to map out the next phase for the digital magazine. We share a passion with publishers for quality curated content. We will continue to collaborate to learn together and build the future of magazines”.

Over 100 publishers from across Readly’s 9 core markets attended the event held at the Leadenhall Building in London including Bauer Media Group, Conde Nast, Aller Media and Klambt.