June 20, 2013updated 21 Jun 2013 8:23pm

Mail Online soars to biggest ever traffic total with 129m unique browsers worldwide

Mail Online achieved its highest ever web audience in May 2013, according to the latest figures released by ABC.

Its average global total for daily ‘browsers’ was 8.2 million, up 46.8 per cent year on year. Its total number of unique browsers for the month was 129 million.

Meanwhile, audience growth for Telegraph.co.uk has been slowed – but not halted – by the decision to put the site behind a metered paywall at the end of March. It remains the third most popular newspaper website in the UK with 2.8m average daily browsers.

The Telegraph now requires readers to take out a subscription if they want to access more than 20 articles per month.

Year-on-year growth in daily browser numbers for Telegraph.co.uk has slowed from 29.8 per cent in April to 12.7 per cent last month.

Second-placed Guardian.co.uk (still completely free) is now growing faster than the Telegraph, up 37 per cent year on year to 4.7m unique browsers a day.

The Independent remains the UK’s fastest growing national newspaper website (as measured by ABC) with average daily browser numbers up 69 per cent year on year to 1.2m.

Mirror Group Digital continues to narrow the gap with Sun Online (which goes behind a paywall on 1 August). The Mirror site grew 62.2 per cent year on year versus The Sun’s more modest growth of 16.4 per cent.

National newspaper website traffic for May 2013 (source ABC)