Mirror Group Digital enjoyed a surge in daily browsers of nearly 20% last month, after the Sun introduced its website paywall.
The Trinity Mirror network of national newspaper websites – which includes Mirror.co.uk, 3am.co.uk and MirrorFootball.co.uk – reported a 19.65% leap in average daily browsers in August to 1,731,520.
Monthly browser numbers were up 15.67% to 34,416,732 last month, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations report released on Thursday.
Trinity Mirror launched an aggressive campaign to lure digital Sun website users seeking to continue reading free online content, following the introduction of a paywall for the News UK title on 1 August.
The introduction of paywalls for Times and Sunday Times content in 2010 led to a 90% drop in traffic. Online metrics firm SimilarWeb has estimated Sun+ monthly site visits were down by more than 60% in August.
The Sun has withdrawn from the official ABC web traffic audit after it started charging for new digital offering Sun+, having recorded 31.7 million monthly browsers in July. ABC figures for August suggest that MGD added nearly 5 million monthly browsers.
"New investment means we have already substantially raised our daily number of stories published with more staff joining all the time," said the Mirror Online publisher, Steve Anglesey. "We are becoming a real player in the areas we have targeted to build a substantial loyal and engaged audience online – big tabloid exclusives, improved photo sets, informative and entertaining live blog event coverage, timely and controversial opinion."
He added that a big focus on developing a mobile strategy is also starting to pay dividends with "huge" year-on-year growth.
Telegraph.co.uk boosted daily browsers by 12.88% to 3,108,353, and monthly browsers by 11.05% to 2,753,596.
Guardian News & Media's website network reported a 5.83% month-on-month dip in daily browsers to 4,519,849, as a transition to a new global domain, theguardian.com, affected traffic. Monthly browser numbers fell 1.56% to 83,519,898.
Independent.co.uk boosted its daily browsers by 5.69% to 1,295,170 and monthly visitors by 5.33% to 27,628,344.
Mail Online continued its seemingly inexorable growth with a month-on-month increase of 2% to crack 9 million daily browsers, with monthly browser numbers up by 2.57% to 137,690,816.
Associated Newspapers stablemate Metro.co.uk showed impressive month-on-month growth of 15% in daily browser numbers to 552,692 and 16.35% in monthly visitors to 12,702,276.
Mail Online
Daily average browsers: 9,004,285
Month-on-month change: +2.06%
Year-on-year change: +37.32%
Monthly browsers: 137,690,816
Month-on-month change: +2.57%
Year-on-year change: +30.24%
theguardian.com
Daily average browsers: 4,519,849
Month-on-month change: -5.83%
Year-on-year change: +18.43%
Monthly browsers: 83,519,898
Telegraph.co.uk
Daily average browsers: 3,108,353
Month-on-month change: +12.88%
Year-on-year change: +13.01%
Monthly browsers: 60,351,846
Month-on-month change: +11.05%
Year-on-year change: +11.94%
Mirror Group Digital
Daily average browsers: 1,731,520
Month-on-month change: +19.65%
Year-on-year: +106.25%
Monthly browsers: 34,416,732
Month-on-month change: +15.67%
Year-on-year change: +103.12%
Independent.co.uk
Daily average browsers: 1,295,170
Month-on-month change: +5.69%
Year-on-year change: +42.55%
Monthly browsers: 27,628,344
Month-on-month change: +5.33%
Year-on-year change: +42.84%
Metro.co.uk
Daily average browsers: 552,692
Month-on-month change: +15.02%
Year-on-year change: +47.84%
Monthly browsers: 12,702,276
Month-on-month change: +16.35%
Year-on-year: +46.58%
Standard.co.uk
Daily average browsers: 202,085
Month-on-month change: -2.13%
Year-on-year change: +18.12%
Monthly browsers: 4,525,932
Month-on-month change: -3.23%
Year-on-year change: +16.61%
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