NRS: More than 70 per cent of the national audience of 6 UK papers is mobile-only

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The number of UK-based readers who access The Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and The Sun only on their mobile devices now account for more than 70 per cent of the titles' total readership, according to the latest figures from the National Readership Survey (NRS) published today.

The Independent, which stopped publishing its print edition a little over one year ago, has the largest share of mobile-only national audience, at 85.3 per cent, followed by the Daily Mirror (79.3 per cent), The Telegraph (75.6 per cent), the Guardian (75.5 per cent), The Sun (74.6 per cent) and the Daily Mail (72.2 per cent).

Metro and Daily Express also have a majority mobile-only readership – 57.1 per cent and 67.9 per cent respectively – while only 35.4 per cent of The Times's UK audience are accessing its content only on mobile devices.

All UK titles have registered growth in their mobile-only audiences compared to the previous period, between July 2015 and June 2016, when The Independent, The Telegraph and the Guardian saw a drop in the number of people who read their content on mobile, but not in print or in desktop. The Sun has consistently grown its mobile-only readership.

The latest report published today covers the period from April 2016 to March 2017, and is based on 75 per cent NRS print data and 25 per cent AMP print data, as the Publishers Audience Measurement Company (PAMCo) is starting to incrementally blend in AMP print readership data.

The AMP data will be fully introduced in February 2018 and will supersede NRS, enabling publishers to monetise de-duplicated audiences across all of their platforms – mobile, tablet, PC and print.

AMP data will be based on 35,000 face-to-face interviews, coupled with estimates of audiences for digital platforms sourced directly from comScore.

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