2012

Mondadori Group and Kobo Inc., a leading company globally in digital reading, sign an accord for the distribution in Italy of Kobo’s eReading platform and related devices. Thanks to the biggest network of bookshops in Italy and one of the biggest online media stores, Mondadori represents for Kobo an ideal partner to enter the Italian market with its products.

Kobo’s eReader devices – with various models such as Touch, Mini and Glo – offer competitive prices and features and are supported by an open network that allows users to synchronise purchased ebooks across different devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, Android smartphones, iPhone and iPad). The first eReaders hit Mondadori stores in October, followed in November by the 7” Android tablet Kobo Arc, which gives access to magazines, the internet, music, news, videos, apps and the entire panorama of social networks.

The Fifty Shades trilogy arrives in Italy, the publishing event of the year

Mondadori publishes Fifty Shades of Grey, the first volume of the erotic trilogy by debut London author E L James, rapidly followed by the two other titles, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. The trilogy sees in Italy the same kind of unprecedented success it gained in the English-language world: with more than 3.3 million copies sold in Italy and 130,000 downloads of the electronic version, the three volumes reach first, third and fourth position of the bestseller list for 2012.

Korea deal brings number of Grazia International Network countries to 23

An agreement with Seoul Cultural Publishers for the publication of Grazia Korea is the latest in a series of accords that brings Grazia to five new countries: in January, Mondadori signs an accord with Media24 for the publication of Grazia South Africa; that is followed by deals with Videotop Color Media for an edition in Slovenia (February), with Wydawnictwo Bauer Sp. Z O.O. SP.K. for the licensing edition in Poland e with Prisma Publicaciones for Grazia Spain (September).

On top of this great success for an iconic style magazine at an international level comes a licensing agreement between Mondadori and Mediengruppe Klambt (which already publishes the German edition of Grazia) for a German edition of Flair (August).