Guardian back on top as Mail Online drops to third

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 24-Jul-08, 12:45

LONDON - Guardian.co.uk has bounded back into the lead among the UK's newspaper websites in June after attracting 20.5m unique users, according to the latest ABCe results.

The Guardian's audience grew by 11.9% in June, which was also up by 41% year on year.

About 8.5m or 41% of Guardian.co.uk's total unique users came from the UK. The Guardian's figures also include traffic for its Observer website.

Telegraph.co.uk, which relaunched this week, climbed back to second spot with a 6.57% month-on-month increase to 19.71m unique users. This figure is up by a massive 179.5% year on year.

However, the Telegraph has a considerably smaller percentage of UK users than Guardian.co.uk. About 6.47m of the Telegraph's users come from the UK, which is roughly 33%.

Mail Online suffered a poor month in June, slumping from top spot into third position.

The Mail's network of sites, which includes the combination of Dailymail.co.uk and MailonSunday.co.uk, slid 14.41% month on month to 16.02m. However, this figure is still up by about 69% year on year.

The site's UK users reached 4.99m, which is 31% of the total unique users.

Times Online meanwhile remains in fourth place. Its unique users climbed 3.1% during June to hit a record 16.37m, which is up 69.7% year on year.

Just over a third (35%) or 5.73m of the Times Online's users were based in the UK

The Sun's network of sites, which includes TheSun.co.uk, Page3.com and NewsoftheWorld.co.uk, reported a 3.76% rise in its unique users in June to 15.51m, which is a rise of 71.9% year on year.

Similar to Times Online, it also attracted 35% of its users from the UK.

The Independent.co.uk, which published its first ABCe last month, grew its audience by 10.44% to 7.22m unique users. No data was available regarding its percentage of UK users.

Mirror Group's network of websites, including Mirror.co.uk, SundayMirror.co.uk, People.co.uk, rose 12.35% month on month to 5.43m unique users.

The network drew an impressive 56% or 3.04m of its users from the UK.