According to Metro: In January’s ABCe figures, Metro.co.uk has seen a 46% increase monthly unique browsers year-on-year. 8,570,724 global visitors visited the site in January 2012 with 352,888 daily average unique users. On average, 29% of UK traffic during this period was via mobile devices.
This success is also replicated with Metro’s free tablet edition, the first ever interactive version of the newspaper designed specifically for the iPad. The Newsstand app has received over 360,000 downloads since October 2011 and now has over 125,000 active subscribers and 75,000 readers every day. Analysis of subscription data received by Metro has shown that these readers reflect the valuable urbanite profile; young professionals, with high disposable incomes, centred on key urban areas and with a thirst for what city-life has to offer (be it arts, entertainment, fashion or dining out).
The Metro Tablet Edition is both free to download and subscribe to within Apple’s Newsstand and allows readers to view national and world news, sport and features as well as interactive video and photo galleries. Plans are currently in place to expand the tablet edition onto other tablet device operating systems.
Metro’s focus on attracting urbanites on the move was further demonstrated by the launch of the Metro app for Windows Phone before Christmas. The app has received an average of 4.8 out of 5 rating.
Grant Woodthorpe, Sales Director at Metro said: “Metro is focussed on delivering the best integrated opportunities for advertisers to engage with our urbanite audience. The growth of our mobile properties, both on tablet and phone, combined with the success of Metro.co.uk and the positive reaction to the newspaper redesign last year, means that we’re in a great position to maximise advertiser exposure across all these channels.”
Jamie Walters, Product Development Director at Metro, said: “We continue to develop our mobile and digital products to extend the appeal of Metro beyond the traditional commute. We know that the urbanite audience are at ease with new technology and we want to engage them with Metro more frequently throughout the day. At the same time we recognise that there are many urbanites who don’t fall into our natural print distribution, for example they may cycle to work or work later hours, and our mobile products give us the opportunity to connect with them.”
