Prima Leads The Way For Women’s Monthlies

The last six months of 1998 have thrown up a mixed batch of circulation figures for women’s monthly magazines. Year on year, the rises and the falls of the sector are fairly 50/50. Marie-Claire achieved the largest growth in sales year on year.

Emap’s Red and Wagadon’s Frank, both relative newcomers to this market, did not yet have year on year comparison figures. IPC’s Options, after suffering consistently declining sales, closed at the beginning of this year (see Newsline).

Period on period, nearly all of the titles have fared considerably worse. Only 5 of the 18 titles listed here gained circulation. IPC’s Marie-Claire remained consistent with its year on year figure, gaining 7% of circulation since Jan-Jun 1998, an actual increase of 29,050.

Generally a mixed group of results for the women’s monthly magazine titles therefore. The prominent market leaders are Prima, Sugar, Cosmopolitan and Marie-Claire, in that order. G&J’s Prima, the current market leader, has a circulation of 510,142.

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