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Australia’s Online Audience Pushes 20.1 Million

3 minute read | April 2017

– 14 million Australians went online via a smartphone in March 2017 – up 6% versus prior year
– News subcategory hits 13.5 million
– Seven out of the top 10 news entities grew in March 2017

Sydney, Australia – 24 April 2017: The number of Australians accessing content online is nearing 20.1 million according to the latest Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) data released today. Access via smartphone is a key driver of that growth – with smartphone unique audiences reaching 14 million in March 2017 – up 6% versus the same month the prior year. 

UNIQUE AUDIENCES (000’s), MARCH 2016 vs MARCH 2017

 

MARCH 2016

MARCH 2017

% CHANGE

  TOTAL

19,666

20,081

2%

  DESKTOP

17,944

18,050

1%

  SMARTPHONE

13,215

13,990

6%

  TABLET

7,640

7,669

0%

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly), March 2017

CURRENT EVENT AND GLOBAL NEWS SUB-CATEGORY
Latest data released today by Nielsen revealed 13.5 million Australians went online for their news and current affairs information during March 2017 – up 2% when comparing both the same month the prior year, and the prior month. Accessing content via a desktop remains the main method for access of this content – up 4%. However, growth in unique audiences when comparing March 2017 with February 2017 is also strong for smartphone (+3%) and tablet (+13%) devices.

Seven of the top ten entities in the current event and global news sub-category increased unique audiences for March 2017 compared to the previous month, according to Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) data.

News.com.au is still in the number one position with a unique audience of over 5.7 million, an increase of 1% compared to the previous month.

ABC News saw a significant increase in unique audiences and jumped to second place with 4.9 million (+19%), Nine.com.au is in third place with no change in their unique audience of 4.6 million from February and Smh.com.au is in fourth place with a unique audience of 4.1 million (-4%).

Daily Mail Australia (3.2 million, +9%) and The Guardian (2.8 million, +6%) retained their fifth and sixth positions in the audience rankings.

BBC jumped back into the top 10 at seventh position with a unique audience of 2.5 million (+14%), followed by the Herald Sun in eighth place (2.5 million, +12%), The Daily Telegraph in ninth (2.5 million, +6%) and Yahoo 7 News moving to tenth place (2.4 million, -4%).

TOP 10 BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE, CURRENT EVENTS & GLOBAL NEWS SUB-CATEGORY, MARCH 2017

Name

Unique Audience (000)

Page Views Per Person

Sessions Per Person

Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)

news.com.au

5,732

50

14

01:10:07

ABC News Websites

4,853

24

10

00:28:02

Nine.com.au

4,561

39

13

01:16:40

smh.com.au

4,100

34

12

00:58:35

Daily Mail Australia

3,187

22

11

00:32:52

The Guardian

2,839

14

8

00:29:18

BBC

2,541

24

8

00:42:38

Herald Sun

2,506

18

9

00:40:55

The Daily Telegraph

2,491

15

8

00:24:47

Yahoo7 News Websites

2,375

9

8

00:11:54

Source: Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – March 2017

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers Watch and Buy.

Nielsen’s Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services across all devices where content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry’s only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance.  

Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90 percent of the world’s population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com

For further information please contact:

Jackie Helliker
Nielsen
T: + 61 403 074 864 
E: jackie.helliker@nielsen.com