ABCe: newspaper websites sees month-on-month falls after stellar May

After a stellar May, the UK's national newspaper websites were on a gentle comedown for June, with almost all audited sites recording a small drop in both daily and monthly user figures. Mail Online remained by some distance the UK's busiest site with 4,062,059 daily unique users, falling 6.96% or just over 300,000 from the previous month, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures published on Thursday. May had been a record month for news sites across the board following the death of Osama Bin Laden and extended coverage of the royal wedding, distorting what is actually a healthy traffic report for June. Guardian.co.uk recorded 2,613,405 daily uniques, a fall of 7.58% from May, and Telegraph.co.uk was down 12.2% month on month to 1,921,711 daily uniques. Independent.co.uk fell 7.28% from May to 625,999 daily unique users. Mirror Group Digital was the only national newspaper site reporting monthly ABCe figures to record an increase in daily uniques from May to June, up 3.32% to 730,296. Industry sources credited this to a marketing campaign that boosted traffic to the Mirror's mobile site. Mail Online saw June 2011's average unique users increase 55.64% from June the previous year to 67,110,048, while Mirror Group Digital's monthly average traffic rose 31.52% to 14,708,075 average monthly uniques. Independent.co.uk saw year-on-year growth of 27.58% to 13,513,040 for the month and the Telegraph 8.22% to 36,457,713. Guardian.co.uk did not report monthly unique user figures for June as part of a new policy of reducing the focus on monthly traffic figures that means publishing this data every other month. Independent.co.uk has the highest proportion of domestic users, with 57.5% of its average monthly visitors based in the UK, or 7.7 million. Mirror Group Digital's UK audience is 57.1% of its total, or 6.3 million users. Telegraph.co.uk has 36.1% of its monthly audience, or 23.3 million users, in the UK, while Mail Online has 34.4% or 23.1 million. Guardian.co.uk has not published a monthly user figure for June, but its daily unique user figure shows that 45.2% of its audience, or an average 1.2 million people, are in the UK. Mail Online Daily average browsers: 4,062,059 Month-on-month change: -6.96% Year-on-year change: +63.43% Monthly browsers: 67,110,048 Monthly change: -13.13% theguardian.com Daily average browsers: 2,613,405 Month-on-month change: -7.58% Year-on-year change: N/A Monthly browsers: N/A Monthly change: N/A Telegraph.co.uk Daily average browsers: 1,921,711 Month-on-month change: -12.2% Year-on-year change: +8.39% Monthly browsers: 36,457,713 Monthly change: -16.76% Mirror Group Digital Daily average browsers: 631,100 Month-on-month change: +3.32% Year-on-year change: +31.52% Monthly browsers: 14,108,330 Monthly change: -6.71% Independent.co.uk Daily average browsers: 586,070 Month-on-month change: -7.28% Year-on-year change: +27.58% Monthly browsers: 12,852,508 Monthly change: -11.25% • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook