Metro was by far the fastest growing UK newspaper website in February, up 385 per cent year on year to 1.3m ‘unique browsers’ per day, according to ABC.
The Metro website is set to merge with Mail Online meaning this could be the last month it is audited separately.
The digital ABC figures for February show all newspapers growing strongly year on year.
The UK’s most popular newspaper website, Mail Online, saw traffic dip 4.5 per cent to 11.2m global browsers per day compared with the 11.8m daily average for January.
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This compares with a print circulation in February for the Daily Mail of 1.7m.
The Guardian managed to grow its daily browsers average by 7.8 per cent month on month meaning its 5.4m global total was a new record. This compares with a daily print circulation of 196,4256 in February.
The websites of the Express titles and the Daily Star released website traffic figures for the first time this month. Express.co.uk debuted with an average of 441,034 browsers per day versus Dailystar.co.uk on 327,098.
The websites of the Manchester Evening News and Liverpool Echo have also started releasing monthly website figures as of this year. Both are showing strong growth with Manchesteveningnews.co.uk up 141.1 per cent to 253,168 browsers per day and Liverpoolecho.co.uk up 121.4 per cent to 171,055.
The UK's two biggest newspaper websites now have far more digital readers abroad than they do in the UK. Mail Online has 4.8m daily UK browsers compared with 6.5m foreign, according to ABC. For The Guardian the split is 2.1m UK, 3.5m foreign.
Despite going behind a metered paywall last April, the Telegraph continues to grow its website traffic year on year, allbeit at a slower pace than its rivals.
Note: ABC measures 'unique browsers' – so different devices visiting websites, rather than people.
UK newspaper website daily browsers for February 2014:
|
Title |
Daily browsers |
y/y % change |
|
Mail Online |
11,241,257.00 |
47.9 |
|
theguardian.com |
5,393,452.00 |
17.5 |
|
Telegraph |
3,154,540.00 |
4.6 |
|
Mirror Group Nationals |
2,454,756.00 |
155.3 |
|
The Independent |
1,426,702.00 |
17.3 |
|
Metro |
1,319,727.00 |
385.4 |
|
express.co.uk |
441,032.00 |
|
|
dailystar.co.uk |
327,098.00 |
|
|
Standard.co.uk |
262,390.00 |
44.7 |
|
manchestereveningnews.co.uk |
253,168.00 |
141.1 |
|
Liverpoolecho.co.uk |
171,055 |
121.4 |
UK newspaper website monthly browsers for February 2014:
|
Title |
Monthly browsers |
y/y % change |
|
Mail Online |
165,886,627.0 |
49.9 |
|
theguardian.com |
91,106,978.0 |
17.7 |
|
Telegraph |
59,703,051.0 |
9.9 |
|
Mirror Group Nationals |
47,143,014.0 |
146.1 |
|
The Independent |
29,794,956.0 |
26.6 |
|
Metro |
27,522,619.0 |
349.2 |
|
express.co.uk |
9,369,809.0 |
N/A |
|
dailystar.co.uk |
5,796,064.0 |
N/A |
|
Standard.co.uk |
5,157,054.0 |
36.8 |
|
manchestereveningnews.co.uk |
4,040,610.0 |
132.5 |
|
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk |
2,613,495.0 |
87.2 |
UK newspaper websites ranked by year on year percentage growth:
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