Flipboard Hits 20 Million Users, 3 Billion Flips Per Month

Oh hey, remember when Flipboard had 5 million users? That was the official figure at the end of last year. It was also the number that came out just as the social magazine app was launching on iPhone, after having previously been an iPad-only app. And it was also six months before the app arrived on Android. Well, apparently, the move to the smartphone platform has been good for the company’s growth – today, Flipboard is announcing new metrics, including a jump to 20 million users and a reach of over 3 billion flips per month.

The flips per month figure is an indication of in-app activity. Readers in the app turn pages with their fingers and each of these page-turns is designated as one “flip.” Before the iPhone app’s release, the company was seeing 650 million flips per month. After, it was trending towards 2 billion flips per month. Now cross-platform, it has climbed again to 3 billion.

1.5 million users log in daily, and they spend , on average, 86 minutes per month in the app. Nice metrics, if you can get ’em, right? 75% of readers connect their social networks in Flipboard, and perform a total of 14.5 million social actions (favoriting, liking, sharing, etc.) in the app per month.

Being available on different form factors and mobile operating systems aren’t the only factors contributing the continued growth. The company has also been working on localized versions of its application, which is now available in countries like China, Japan, France, and Korea. However, Flipboard notes that, in total, it reaches over 200 countries worldwide – but to be clear, not all these are localized editions. Brazilian users spend the most time in the app, says Flipboard, while Mexican users read the most articles per user, and the Japanese are the most social.

Flipboard also announced some other numbers related to its usage – such as that the top day for tablet reading is Sunday. That’s a particularly interesting metric since it’s further indication of our move away from printed newspapers for relaxed weekend reading as we adopt connected devices to take newspapers’ place. Maybe Flipboard now needs a selection of crossword puzzles? Oh, that’s right. The company has a paywall deal with the NYTimes now, but – major bummer – that doesn’t include crosswords. Can you guys please work something out? Thanks.

For smartphone users, Thursday is the top day for Flipboard usage, which is kind of odd because Thursday is often a slow news day around this blogosphere. Maybe it’s a good time to catch up on what you missed, then? Also of note, the top reading hours are 10-11 PM, which shows that Flipboard can also serve to replace the nightly news, too, if you prefer reading the news to watching it. Although, if you prefer video, Flipboard has integrated YouTube as of this summer.

Numbers Flipboard is not talking about today? Revenue. CTRs for advertisers. It’s all traction and engagement metrics. But CEO Mike McCue did note earlier this year that one of its campaigns saw a 3.5% CTR, but this one did particularly well – hence why it was cited as an example. At the time, he declined to talk about the typical CTR, only noting they were “much higher than anything you’d see on the web.”