RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s Lifestyle Media is set to launch US men’s magazine Esquire in India in April 2024. Priced between Rs 250 and Rs 300, the monthly will be positioned as a luxury lifestyle offering. The group expects all the required regulatory approvals to fall in place over the next couple of months.
“I think this is a very exciting time for product categories aimed at men,” says Avarna Jain, chairperson, RPSG Lifestyle Media. “Their consumption patterns have changed dramatically over the past 5-7 years. Some categories that didn’t even exist a few years ago are pretty big right now.”
Jain has a point. Take the Indian male grooming market, for instance, which has grown at a fifth-gear speed from the level of $643 million in 2018 to $2 billion in 2022, and is expected to touch $3.5 billion by the end of this decade. In apparels, luxury clothing designers like Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Anamika Khanna have both stepped into the men’s luxury fashion domain looking to replicate their early success in women’s clothing.
The fortunes of the print media market also seems to be looking up after the pandemic lull. Investment information and credit rating agency Icra estimates the print media revenues to grow 8-10% y-o-y in FY24, supported by a pick-up in ad-spends by the government in view of the upcoming general elections and a recovery in demand from FMCG and auto. That apart, the easing in newsprint prices to $650/MT currently, which had touched historically high levels of $1,000-1,100/MT in FY23, is expected to support a recovery in the players’ operating margins.
As per Icra, the circulation revenues of the industry were estimated to have reached around 90% of the pre-pandemic levels in FY23, driven largely by the increase in cover prices, as the number of copies in circulation remained significantly low vis-à-vis the 2019 levels. Ad revenues, at about 80% of FY19 levels in FY23, have been slower to recover.
Currently published in the US by Hearst Communications, Esquire has 18 international editions at the moment; the India edition will be the 90-year-old magazine’s 19th. Jain’s team is busy putting together the editorial and marketing teams at the moment. She points at the larger opportunity in the space. “Don’t think of this as a print or digital opportunity. We will be taking a 360 degree view… just look at the opportunity in the events space, for instance,” Jain says.
From the looks of it, developing and associating with men’s pageants, for instance, could be a potential money spinner. “Esquire is the first step in strengthening our lifestyle portfolio,” Jain adds.