Wealthy Males Supporting E-Books Market

Dominique D’Hinnin, Lagardère’s finance chief, told the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in Barcelona that while most paperback buyers were 50-something year old women of “average income,” e-book customers tended to be younger men, a more lucrative market. “We don’t talk about the mass market yet. Most e-book buyers are males, 35 year old, with a lot of money. Basically it’s investment bankers,” D’Hinnin said.

That same affluent market of iPad owners is fueling higher advertising rates for magazine applications, he added. E-book prices are about 20 percent lower than new hardback sales, he said, generating higher sales