Below are statements by the following publishers: The Guardian, The Independent and The Standard.
The Guardian
David Pemsel, deputy chief executive, Guardian News & Media: “March marked another milestone for the Guardian, with traffic hitting a record 127 million monthly unique browsers, including off-platform traffic. It’s great to see that our award-winning journalism continues to find new audiences, and that when significant world events happen people turn to the Guardian for its trusted and intelligent reporting.”
Digital ABC briefing note - March 2015
Traffic summary (Including off-platform)
Monthly unique browsers
127,372,034 (MoM +8.06% )
Monthly page impressions
768,518,589 (MoM +11.51%)
Traffic summary (Excluding off-platform)
Monthly unique browsers
122,668,365 (+7.8% MoM; +20.7% YoY)
Monthly page impressions
752,548,178 (+11.5% MoM, +40.1% YoY)
Monthly visits
298,077,543 (+10.9% YoY, +35.3% YoY)
Commentary
A great month for the Guardian, which saw us break our previous record (121 million, January), with total on-platform traffic increasing by 21% year-on-year.
Mobile (+57%) and tablet (+13%) have seen strong year-on-year growth, with desktop (+1.3%) holding steady.
Breaking the figures down to referral source, traffic from direct, Twitter and Facebook all showed good month-on-month increases, with Google posting impressive year-on-year growth of +12.1%.
Editorially, our coverage of the Germanwings disaster was a big driver of traffic, with our solar eclipse live blog also proving popular. The figures show that people continue to come to us as a source of informed, intelligent reporting and analysis when major stories break.
The Independent
Independent.co.uk breaks all records with highest ever unique monthly user figures
March’s ABCes demonstrate continued success for Independent.co.uk and i100 across all key metrics
* Independent.co.uk and i100 hit 53.8m global unique monthly users for the first time ever – a 45.5% hike from 36.9m in March 2014, and a 13.2% rise from 47.5m in February
* In the UK alone, monthly unique users have reached an unprecedented 20.4m, up 15.7% from 17.7m in February and climbing an incredible 49.1% year on year from 13.7m.
* Global daily unique users have grown 3.5% from February’s 2.4m to 2.5m – increasing an impressive 50.4% year on year from 1.7m.
* A staggering 30.7musers accessed the sites via a mobile device during March – representing over half (57.0%) of all users and generating 81.2m page views, up 11.0% from February.
Christian Broughton, Digital Editor of The Independent and i100 said: “We’re committed to a constant process of innovation in our journalism, and you can see it in these figures. A strong news agenda allowed us to showcase, particularly, the data and video skills of our growing digital team. The Independent has always set out to really make sense of the news, and now we can do this in more compelling ways than ever, bringing reports and analysis to life.
"The US office is also hitting its stride, with the team about to expand and other improvements on their way."
The Standard
Standard.co.uk celebrates its best month ever
Standard.co.uk reports record-breaking growth across key global and UK metrics in March ABCes
* Global unique monthly browsers reached a staggering 8.4m – a 27.2%increase from 6.6m in February, and an impressive 62.9% rise from 5.1m in March last year.
* In the UK, unique monthly browsers also saw a remarkable year-on-year increase of 64.5% from 3.4m, hitting 5.6m for the first time ever – up 18.8%from 4.7m in February.
* The site achieved its highest ever global daily unique visitors at 369,984 – up 13.8% from 325,126 in February, and 60.6% from 230,329 last March.
* Globally, 4.8m users accessed the site via a mobile device during March, accounting for 57.5%of all users and generating 11.3m page views (41.1%of the total).
* Year on year, visitors to the Standard.co.uk mobile site have grown by an exceptional 124% globally (122% in the UK).
Zach Leonard, MD of Digital, ESI Media, said: “It is gratifying to report such phenomenal growth for standard.co.uk as we continue to invest in and expand our digital offering. Our growing audience is a testament to the well-established and highly respected London Evening Standard brand and evidence of the synergy between print and online. Our core strengths of breaking news and sport, plus all the latest from the world of showbusiness, entertainment, lifestyle and fashion has been central to extending our reach, not just in the capital but in the wider UK and global markets”
