Dentsu Inc. (President & CEO: Tatsuyoshi Takashima; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 58,967.1 million yen) announced today that this summer, through a partnership with digital contents distribution technology leader YAPPA Corporation (CEO: Masahiro Ito; Head Office Tokyo; hereinafter, “YAPPA”), it will launch “MAGASTORE,” a specialized sales business selling electronic magazines on mobile phones and other platforms.

Service will begin as an application on Apple’s iPhone, and then be introduced gradually to other carriers.

The background and characteristics of this new service development are as follows.

Background and Aim of the New Service
The yearly domestic market for electronic distribution services including books and comics is around 73 billion yen (see Note 1), but magazines are still not as easy to view as books and comics, and the electronic delivery service market for magazines has not yet been established.

However, with the rapid spread of mobile phones with large-screen, high-resolution, touch-panel displays such as the iPhone, certain electronic magazine delivery services are beginning to appear. Against this backdrop, Dentsu has partnered with YAPPA, with its high-level mobile phone digital contents distribution technology, to develop a viewer suitable for electronic magazine viewing and a sales platform for electronic magazine contents.

Concurrently, Dentsu has actively pursued negotiations with publishers for their participation. Sales of 30 types of magazines from 20 publishers have been confirmed for the launch of the service, with this expected to grow to 50 types of magazines from 30 publishers within the year.

Development is also expanding not only for iPhone applications, but also for the official sites of other mobile carriers, personal computers and videogame consoles.