Customer titles accounted for 30 of the top 100 magazines in the UK; seven of those were in the top 10.
The contrast with consumer magazines is stark - 73% of customer titles in the top 100 experienced a period-on-period circulation rise in the first half of 2008, compared to 34% of consumer titles.
Julia Hutchison, chief operating officer at the Association of Publishing Agencies, says that marketing directors are pouring more and more money into customer magazines.
"Marketers are investing in customer magazines because the medium is proven to work," she says. "Many of them focus on retaining customers and upselling them as opposed to acquiring new ones. Customer magazines play perfectly to this idea of retention."
Hutchison also claims that customer magazines are widening their scope, and therefore audiences, by attracting global brands.
And yet she believes the growth in customer publishing need not damage the magazine market as a whole. "We hope to see customer magazines encouraging readership of great, printed content."
News Magazines' Skymag consolidated its position as the biggest- circulation UK magazine, as well as the most widely read customer title, with a 6.2% year-on-year rise in circulation to 7,470,165 copies.
BSkyB's specialist titles, Sky Sports and Sky Movies, took the second and third slots, with circulations of 4,415,999 and 3,667,692 respectively.
Customer magazines also dominated the cookery and kitchen sector of the women's interest category, with the top three titles - Asda Magazine, Tesco Magazine and Sainsbury's Fresh Ideas - all showing year-on-year increases.
Meanwhile, new launch Sense Magazine, published by John Brown, debuted with a circulation of almost one million, making the magazine the 11th-most widely -distributed title in the UK.
