LONDON — The Financial Times famously replaced its iOS app with a HTML5 web app, after losing a fight for control over customer data and pricing. But its Apple absence doesn’t mean the FT hasn’t gone native elsewhere.
“It’s not like we have a problem with native apps,” FT emerging platforms product manager Chris Smith tells Beet.TV in this interview at the publisher’s office last week.
“In the Windows 8 store and Google Play store, there’s no restriction on the data we can ask our customers for. It means we can have a native app in the Windows Store or Google Play store and we can use the data we collect as part of our advertising.”
FT paid digital subscriptions grew 18 percent over the year to February, reaching 316,000. In total, the web app had 3.5 million users, with mobile making up 30 percent of FT.com traffic.
