The digital turnaround that characterised 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus crisis has also initiated lasting changes in the area of digital media offerings. sharemagazines, a former university project from Oldenburg, has grown into a successful young company with its digital reading circle - and was able to achieve record figures last year (2021) thanks to a significant increase in awareness of digital offerings. The simple implementation and user-friendly design of the innovative media offering as well as the attractive range of titles are in tune with the zeitgeist.
The appeal of the entertainment offering is directly reflected in the business figures. By the end of 2021, the company had more than 2,500 sharemagazines locations. More than 1.5 million titles were read last year.
The then students Jan van Ahrens, Oliver Krause and Gunnar Sieweke won the University of Oldenburg's start-up prize in 2013 with their idea of an app that enables unlimited access to newspapers and magazines and eventually founded sharemagazines GmbH in 2014.
Jan van Ahrens, CEO of sharemagazines, looks back:
"Back when we were students, we had of course dreamed that our university project would grow into a successful company. We discovered the need for digital reading content in our locations back in 2013. And now we can look back on a successful 2021 financial year and are delighted with the consistently positive feedback we have received for our digital reading circle. We are constantly working on improving and expanding our offering so that we can continue to provide an attractive and even better entertainment programme for our locations in the future."
It all began with the OSTFRIESISCHE KURIER, the first daily newspaper in the portfolio. The portfolio has since grown to include more than 650 national and international daily newspapers and magazines. However, the focus is not on the quantitative expansion of the portfolio, but on the provision of high-quality content and thus a selective expansion of titles.
The longest-standing customer of sharemagazines is the Novum Hotel in Emden, which has been providing its guests with the digital reading circle since it was founded around eight years ago. The current pioneer location in terms of reading times is the University Medical Centre Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH). With a reading time of around 7,100 hours in 2021, the hospital is the location with the highest reading time.
Whether in a hairdressing salon, hotel, doctor's waiting room or car dealership: the location-based service enables access to a variety of daily newspapers and magazines via a free app during a visit. Reading on a mobile device not only saves paper and thus protects the environment, but is now also perceived as more hygienic than the paper version. Newspapers and magazines are no longer passed from hand to hand in this way.