Yomiuri Shimbun Begins Digital Edition

Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s largest circulation daily newspaper (weekday: 14,242,000 copies) has begun wholesaling a digital edition. According to Nihon Shinbun Kyokai
(Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association) Yomiuri will sends its PDF files to NewspaperDirect of Canada and Konica Business Machines of Tokyo, who will partner to printout copies that they will distribute to hotels, bookstores, newsstands, and other sites in 55. Printed copies of Yomiuri had been available outside Japan only by airfreight that could delivered copies up to a day late.

Yomiuri‘s new digital edition will be A3-sized, with 28-pages B&W pages containing the major stories from the newsprint edition, in addition to special pages from its satellite-transmitted edition for overseas subscribers. The retail price will vary worlwide, but will be two dollars in the US.

One of Yomiuri‘s competitor, Mainichi Shimbun (the world’s third largest circulation daily, 5,635,000 weekday copies) is already wholesaling a digital edition through NewspaperDirect.