#DMS13: 84% of The Times digital page views on tablets

Eighty-four per cent of page views of The Times's digital products are on tablets. The figure is for the last three months and includes page views of The Times's paywalled site and its paid-for apps.

Emma Fulton, digital product owner, News International, which owns The Times and The Sun, shared the figures at Digital Media Strategies, a two-day conference taking place in London. She warned that the stats are "skewed" as app reading behaviour on a tablet encourages an increased number of page views as readers swipe through content. "Times users are tablet heavy," she said.

The figure of 84 per cent compares with 11 per cent of page views to The Sun's digital offerings taking place on tablets.

Two thirds of those who view The Sun's website and apps on tablets access TheSun.co.uk, rather than viewing content in the apps, and out of that two thirds figure, 19 per cent of visitors to The Sun's site are visiting using Apple devices.

Fulton explained that a difference in tablet usage to access the two titles is the fact that The Sun's website is free to view and its apps are paid for, whereas users must pay to read both The Times online or via the app.

Fulton also shared the figures for mobile. She said 23 per cent of digital page views to The Sun were made on a phone, whereas mobile provides just 6 per cent of The Times's digital page views.

Out of that 6 per cent of mobile views of The Times, 87 per cent is via iPhone and 2 per cent from Android, with other smartphones also contributing digital traffic. Fulton added: "iOS users are more engaged."

Mobile traffic peaks in the early morning and late at night during the week, she explained. Smartphone use to The Times's digital products, and smartphone and tablet use to The Sun's website and apps peak at 7am and 10pm during the week, and at 9am and 6pm at weekends.

Tablet usage to view The Times has the same morning weekday peaks, with an early evening spike between 7pm and 8pm.

Fulton also said that The Times customers who buy subscriptions directly from the publisher via bundled packages are 36 per cent more engaged than those who sign up via iTunes.

Fulton explained that News International has invested in its digital platforms during the past 18 months to two years, including building an analytics platform in house.

The Times and Sunday Times iPad apps last week merged, with The Times becoming a seven-day app publication.

According to The Times Tumblr blog, the move streamlines production of the app for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire.

The post published last week states: "The seven-day app is the final (and most significant) release onto the 'Mario' publishing platform developed internally to leverage the benefits of both native and web technologies and enable a single production team to publish editions across all three tablet platforms."

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