The Sun’s online reach has more than doubled compared to the same time last year when it was behind a paywall, the latest ABC figures show.
The website recorded 2,905,750 average daily unique browsers last month, up 162 per cent year-on-year. In September last year, the site attracted 1.1m unique browsers per day.
The Sun scrapped its paywall on November 30, having attracted about 200,000 paying subscribers.
See below for the full July ABC rankings
Trinity Mirror also saw large gains year on year last month.
Its Regional Network was up 81 per cent to 3,721,519 unique daily browsers while Trinity Mirror Group Digital (the combined national and regional total) reached a total of 8,248,853 daily uniques, up 45 per cent.
Pete Picton, Trinity Mirror online editorial director, said the publisher “expected a traffic drop in September”.
“However, our strong progress is reflected in the year-on-year traffic,” he added.
“We’re increasingly reaching new audiences through our technology coverage, with 6.5m unique browsers coming to us for news about the iPhone 7 release.
“Four of the top ten stories across the whole site were iPhone 7 related, contributing to a record month for our Technology section.”
The Evening Standard grew 40 per cent year-on-year to 575,730 daily unqiues and the Birmingham Mail was up 41 per cent.
The Independent, which became a digital-only publication in March, fell by 11 per cent month-on-month to 3,253,850 daily unique browsers per day
Newspaper website ABC figures for September 2016 (source ABC)
| Title | Average daily unique browsers | % change month-on-month | % change year-on-year |
| MailOnline | 14,739,323 | -3.21 | 10.28 |
| Trinity Mirror Group – Digital | 8,248,853 | -5.51 | 44.65 |
| theguardian.com | 7,964,892 | -4.65 | -4.84 |
| Mirror Group Nationals | 4,912,704 | -6.65 | 26.16 |
| Telegraph | 4,350,828 | -8.79 | -1.55 |
| Trinity Mirror Regional Network | 3,721,519 | -4.52 | 81.46 |
| The Independent | 3,253,850 | -10.99 | 17.02 |
| The Sun | 2,905,750 | -1.52 | 162.05 |
| express.co.uk | 1,493,995 | -9.48 | 23.16 |
| Metro | 1,155,753 | -7.64 | 24.87 |
| Manchester Evening News | 782,492 | -6.08 | 34.29 |
| dailystar.co.uk | 710,127 | -26.36 | 24.45 |
| Evening Standard | 575,730 | -14.38 | 40.34 |
| Liverpool Echo | 526,691 | -11.95 | 33.25 |
| Wales Online | 349,014 | 9.45 | 8.02 |
| Birmingham Mail | 260,451 | -9.11 | 41.04 |
| ChronicleLive | 259,514 | -3.52 | 25.93 |
| GazetteLive | 111,509 | 2.47 | 14.08 |
| Hull Daily Mail (Web) | 103,984 | -5.84 |
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