The national newspaper websites of the Guardian, Telegraph and the Daily Mail each attracted more than 30m unique users for the first time in September.
In a record breaking month Guardian.co.uk overtook Mail Online – website of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday – to once again become the national newspaper website with the largest audience.
Guardian.co.uk attracted a record 32,953,433 unique users last month, according to figures released today by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
This was a 42 per cent increase on traffic in the same month last year and up 22 per cent on the usually quiet month of August.
Its previous highest traffic figure of 29,811,671 was achieved in January.
Emily Bell, director of digital content at Guardian News and Media, said: “Breaking 30 million users is another milestone for guardian.co.uk…Our UK audience is also at an all time high with 11,882,653 users, the biggest UK audience in the online newspaper market
“Both our global and UK success can be attributed to our sustained investment in web content. The newly launched environment site attracted a significant number of new users and our new TV site, offering user-friendly listings, has encouraged repeat visitors and increased engagement.”
Telegraph.co.uk jumped into second spot with a record audience of 31,016,789 last month. Its traffic was up 24 per cent on August and 35 per cent year on year. Its previous high of 27,708,274 was reached in March this year.
Edward Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, said: “As well as the excellent growth in our global and UK audiences overall we have worked hard to develop our coverage in areas where there is strong demand both from our readers and advertisers.
“Our UK page impressions surged more than 60 per cent from a year earlier in finance, fashion, travel and motoring. The strongest area of growth on our website was in technology, following the launch in August of a new tech editorial unit.”
Despite attracting its largest ever audience of 30,042,463 in September, Mail Online was deposed as the nation’s leading newspaper website as it fell to third place behind Guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk.
Mail Online increased its traffic 68 per cent year on year and five per cent month on month in September as it topped its previous high of 29,872,465, which it achieved in July.
News International‘s thesun.co.uk recorded a month on month traffic fall of three per cent from the 23,803,426 it achieved in August to 22,994,391 unique users last month. However, this was still a 46 per cent year on year improvement.
Stablemate Times Online attracted 18,502,839 unique users last month, a drop of nine per cent year on year and a one per cent fall on its August traffic.
Mirror Group Digital attracted 8,930,691 unique users last month down just over one per cent from its August traffic figure but 70 per cent up year on year.
Independent.co.uk attracted 8,787,141 unique users last month a jump of almost ten per cent year on year and up just over nine per cent on the 8,049,316 users it attracted in August.
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