App by Indians top iPad grosser in Asia

Bangalore: Magzter,an online magazine store developed by two Chennai-based entrepreneurs Girish Ramdas and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan,has become the top grosser on the Apple iPads app stores across much of Asia.
Since last Thursday,Magzter has overtaken international favourites and long standing grossers like Angry Birds,Clash of Clans,NY Times,Frontline Commando,FIFA 13,Need for Speed and Quick Office Pro HD.On Tuesday,Clash of Clans had briefly recovered its No 1 spot,but when TOI last looked at the list of top grossers (those making the most money ) on the iPad,Magzter was back at the top.The iPad has over 700,000 apps.Even in the number of daily downloads,Magzter has crossed other reading apps like Flipboard,Pulse and Zite, Ramdas,CEO of Magzter,said.The newsstand,which was launched just 17 months ago,already has 4.5 million users globally.
India-made apps have previously seen success on the downloading side.Rohit Singals NightStand alarm clock app for the iPhone was downloaded three million times in a few days in 2007.But these have been primarily free apps.Magzter is perhaps the first Indian app to feature in the top grosser list across many app stores.The majority of Magzters users are in the US,the market that the company is most focused on.New York is the worlds biggest publishing hub.So that is where we have registered our headquarters, Ramdas said.
But Ramdas has never worked in the US.He grew up and has worked throughout in Chennai.He graduated from the College of Engineering,Guindy,in Chennai.In 2000,he founded an IT services company called Dot Com Infoway in the city and later started a magazine called Galatta focused on the south Indian film industry.In 2009,he created an iPhone app for the magazine and followed it up with an iPad app.These apps later inspired him to create the global online magazine newsstand.
Magzter has more than 1,500 magazines in its store.About 400 of them are Indian magazines.We have readers from all over the world who buy magazine subscriptions every day.Cross border selling is helping the digital magazine industry by generating more global readers, Radhakrishnan,president of Magzter said.Radhakrishnan did a Bachelor's degree in computer science from Madras University and a Master's degree in management from BITS,Pilani.He later worked with Ramdas in Dot Com Infoway.
Magzter has received massive traction over the past 45 days thanks to the addition of some Facebook sharing features.Sales have risen by 80% in November,compared to October.
Magzters popularity is also because of the ease with which publishers can use it to publish replica versions of physical magazines or even to create highly interactive magazines.We give complete control to publishers and they get to decide what they want to give to their readers, Radhakrishnan said.Magazine prices are also heavily discounted,by as much as 50% in many cases,because of the cost effectiveness of the online medium.Magzter,compared to some of its other online newsstand competitors,has another big advantage.It allows you to buy a magazine on one platform,say Apples iOS,and read it on another one of your devices that runs on,say,the Android or Windows 8 platform.Magzter is now trying to quickly build on its success.

MAG MAGIC

Magzter,developed by Girish Ramdas (left) and Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan,has more than 1,500 magazines in its store The majority of Magzter users are in the US Magazine prices are discounted by as much as 50%