resize text:

Online Journalism News

Massive web gains for Telegraph, Mirror Group debuts with 4.4m uniques

Posted: 24/04/08 By: Oliver Luft
email this story | post a comment

The website of the Daily Telegraph recorded a huge jump in traffic visiting its website last month, according to data released today by Audit Bureau of Circulation Electronic (ABCE)

Mirror Group debuted its web traffic figures this month, showing that it reached 4.4 million unique in March, but it was dwarfed by increases in traffic at the Telegraph.

The site saw a 38.69 per cent month-on-month increase as a record 17,036,081 unique users visited in March - up from 12,283,835 in the short month of February, causing it to jump to the position of third most popular UK national newspaper website, behind Guardian.co.uk and the Mail/Mail on Sunday.

Year-on-year the number of users visiting the site was up 136.64 per cent from the 7,199,166 it recorded in March, 2007.

The paper attributed the sharp rise, in part, to a string of major news stories - particularly around the credit crunch - and in depth coverage of the Budget, for which it built a micro-site and commissioned exclusive videos on Telegraph TV.

"March has been a tremendous month for us, with UK and global traffic more than doubling year on year," said Barry Flanigan, marketing director, Telegraph Media Group.

"We are extremely pleased with the way our multimedia strategy has helped drive performance and our Budget coverage is a great example of this."

The publication of the ABCE multi-platform report saw the first reporting of monthly traffic figures from Mirror Group Newspapers and also showed figures for FT.com, which tends to publish traffic figures every six months.

FT.com had a strong showing, recording 7,113,132 unique visitors in March.

Mirror Group registered the lowest number of unique users - 4,403,869 - of the seven UK national newspapers that published monthly traffic figures through the ABCE for March.

Guardian.co.uk slipped from 19,519,923 users in February to a March figure of 18,703,811 - a drop of 4.18 per cent. Year-on-year it was up 35.92 per cent.

However, according to the unique user metric used by ABCE it remains the most popular national newspaper website in the UK.

Mail/Mail on Sunday moved closer in second place as it gained 5.50 per cent on its February figure, moving from 17,035,229 to 17,972,153 unique users. The Mail did not make public traffic figures last year so a year-on-year comparison was not available.

News International newspapers The Times and The Sun also registered traffic gains.

The Sun climbed to 13,791,450 from 12,526,916 month-on-month, a gain of 10.09 per cent. Year-on-year it grew by 71.79 per cent.

The Times claimed 16,083,991 uniques in March from 14,472,902 in February, up 11.13 per cent month-month. Like the Mail, The Times did not make public traffic figures last year so a year-on-year comparison was not available.

Of the newspapers reporting monthly traffic gains Guardian.co.uk had the largest number of users in the UK, 7,731,573, followed by The Telegraph, 6,045,285, Times Online, 5,631,264, The Sun, 5,256,154, The Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday, 5,105,385 and then The Mirror 2,498,613.