NRS: Mobile-only UK readership of The Times and the Guardian grows as other publishers see drop

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UK mobile-only audiences of both The Times and the Guardian have grown since December 2015, whilst other major publishers have seen slight declines, according to the latest National Readership Survey (NRS) figures released today (2 June).

The previous two reports showed the numbers of people who read the Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Times on mobile, but not in print or on desktop, were growing steadily.

The Times now has 5.39 per cent of its 5.11 million readers consuming content only on their mobile devices, growing by 1.39 per cent from the end of last year.

The title is still operating a hard paywall, but has recently ceased publishing rolling news on its digital platforms in favour of structuring its output to coincide with peak traffic times.

The outlet launched new phone and tablet apps, the news organisation is focusing on publishing editions across all of its platforms – in print, on tablets, smartphones and the web.

And while print is still the dominant medium for the outlet, The Times has seen an increase in digital-only readership – this number currently stands at 17.49 per cent, compared to 16 per cent previously.

The Guardian's mobile-only audience has also grown by one per cent, with 55.7 per cent of the outlet's total UK audience of 24.2 million now reading solely on their smartphones.

The Telegraph, The Independent and the Daily Mirror all saw declines in mobile-only news consumption.

The Telegraph registered 1.9 per cent drop in mobile-only readers, going from 55.34 per cent to 53.48 per cent at the end of last year, whereas The Independent saw a slightly lower dip of 0.4 per cent, from 64.25 per cent to 63.83 per cent.

Metro had the most significant drop in mobile-only readership, of 5.35 per cent. Some 33.2 per cent of its readers access the title solely on their smartphones, compared to 38.5 per cent in December 2015.

The title was followed by the Daily Mirror, which now has 12.68 million people reading it on their mobile devices, down 3.8 per cent in the same time period, from 59 per cent to 55.33 per cent.

Elsewhere, The Telegraph and The Independent join the Guardian in reaching the highest percentages of digital readers as part of their total national audience across all mediums, including print, with 91.8 per cent, 93.8 per cent and 95.1 respectively.

The Independent stopped publishing its print product at the end of March and went digital-only in April.

Having transferred some 40 employees from print to its digital operations, the publisher is focusing on growth in this area by developing new projects, such as InfoLab, the data-driven section of the site.

Daily Mail remains the most read newspaper in the UK, with some 29.5 million readers across the country. The outlet's digital-only readership has increased slightly since the end of 2015, now standing at 83.33 per cent compared to 82.64 percent previously.

Data from the NRS PADD report covers the period from April 2015 to March 2016, integrated with comScore figures from March 2016. It represents monthly audience estimates for smartphones and tablets.

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