Sun website tops festive chart

The Sun was the only online newspaper brand to see website visitors rise in December, according to the latest ABCe figures. It saw a 15.42% rise in visitors to 18,961,552 in December over November.

All other sites suffered from the seasonal distractions of the long festive break with the leading newspaper website Guardian.co.uk dropping 12.34% to 22,829,024 visitors.

The Telegraph fell 8.3% to 21,051,959 and MailOnline dropped 5.78% to 19,663,467. The Times Online has swapped positions with MailOnline with a drop of 11.49% to 19,116,658.

The Sun’s rival Mirror Group Digital fell 10% to 5,324,462 visitors while The Independent actually registered the smallest fall of 1.53% but from a low base of 8,752,008.

However, year-on-year results show massive growth across the board for the websites with MailOnline visitors up 44.27%, Guardian.co.uk up 43.08%, Telegraph up 99.55% and Times Online up 71.09%. The Sun jumped 81.02% year-on-year.