reading_on_phone.jpg
Credit: Image from Pixabay

At The Independent, an outlet that recently announced its plans to discontinue the print edition and become an online-only news brand, 64.25 per cent of the national audience reads stories exclusively on a mobile phone or tablet.

And more than half of those who read The Daily Mirror (59 per cent), The Telegraph (55.34 per cent), the Express (55.26 per cent) and the Guardian (54.66 per cent) in the UK also do so from their mobile devices and not on desktop computers or in print.

The latest figures from the National Readership Survey released today show the number of mobile-only readers has been steadily growing.

In the previous period (between October 2014 and September 2015), The Mirror reported its mobile-only share of the audience at 55.9 per cent, The Telegraph had just passed the halfway mark with 52.84 per cent, The Express reported 54.95 per cent, and the Guardian just 51.74 per cent.

As well as announcing the shutting down of its print edition, The Independent launched a new tablet app called The Daily Edition this month, available on a subscription basis and designed to feel very "print-like".

"It looks and feels just like a newspaper," Christian Broughton, digital editor at the Independent, told Journalism.co.uk, adding that the app is also a way to keep print readers connected with the title after the daily newspaper stops hitting the shelves in March.

Some 948,000 people in the UK now read the Independent only in print, according to the NRS.

The most read newspaper in the UK remains the Daily Mail, with 28.8 million readers, of which 82.64 per cent access the title's content through digital channels.

The Telegraph follows, reporting 26.2 million readers of which 93.8 per cent access the site through digital channels, and the Daily Mirror with 26.1 million readers, of which 87.7 per cent are online.

The highest share of digital readers was reported by The Independent with 95.3 per cent, followed closely by the Guardian at 95.14 per cent.

The NRS PADD report, released by The Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo), represents monthly audience estimates for smartphones and tablets.

It is compiled from NRS data between January and December 2015 integrated with comScore figures from November 2015.

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).