There’s encouraging news for hard-pressed magazine publishers with the release of ThreePM’s sales figures for Christmas.

ThreePM, who run www.magazine-group.co.uk as well as sites for W H Smith’s and Blackwell’s, generated over £1.5 million worth of subscription revenue for publishers in November and December, from nearly 50,000 individual subscriptions. This is a huge 60% increase on the same period in 2008.

Given the extremely challenging market that magazines experienced last year these sales indicate that subscriptions remain as popular as ever as gifts, and that more customers feel comfortable with subscribing online.

“This is a significant milestone for UK magazines,” says Don Brown, the Business Director of ThreePM, “No third party website has ever sold £1.5 million of subscriptions for Christmas before, and the indications are that similar success has been achieved by publishers’ own activity. The magazines we are talking to have generally had bumper sales and are feeling much more optimistic about circulation prospects in 2010.”