ABCes: Mail Online presses ahead as rivals see post-World Cup dip

July proved a disappointing month for the UK's national newspaper websites, with every publication bar market leader Mail Online recording fewer daily users than in June as sites felt the drop off from June's high World Cup traffic. The latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic, published today, show that Mail Online had just 0.38% more users from June to July at 2,494,916 daily unique browsers. Mail Online also saw the largest year-on-year growth in daily vistor numbers, which rose by 44%. Guardian.co.uk remained the second most popular UK newspaper website, recording 1,933,704 daily uniques, a drop of 5% from June but up 30% year on year. Telegraph.co.uk was again third, attracting 1,623,290 daily uniques, a fall of 9% from June but also up on last year by 22%. Mirror Group Digital recorded July traffic down 3% from June to 513,944, a rise of 4% from July 2009, while the Independent's website had 471,917 daily uniques. That was down 4% month on month but up 22% from last July. Mail Online also claimed the most UK monthly users, according to ABCe, with 15,943,521 visits from UK browsers during July. That is equivalent to 36% of its online audience. Guardian.co.uk's UK audience accounted for 40% of overall users during July, or 13,733,357 unique monthly users. Telegraph.co.uk had 34% or 10,637,465, while the Independent site had 46% or 4,720,891 monthly users. The Mirror's sites recorded 5,958,136 unique monthly users in July, representing 54% of its audience. News International's Times Online and Sun Online no longer publish their ABCe figures while both sites hone their paywall strategy. Mail Online Daily average browsers: 2,494,916 Month-on-month change: +0.38% Year-on-year change: +43.98% Monthly browsers: 44,218,894 Monthly change: +2.55% Guardian.co.uk Daily average browsers: 1,933,704 Month-on-month change: -5.05% Year-on-year change: +30.14% Monthly browsers: 34,590,814 Monthly change: -1.9% Telegraph.co.uk Daily average browsers: 1,632,290 Month-on-month change: -8.59% Year-on-year change: +22.08% Monthly browsers: 31,753,462 Monthly change: -5.59% Mirror Group Digital Daily average browsers: 513,944 Month-on-month change: -2.58% Year-on-year change: +3.66% Monthly browsers: 10,989,690 Monthly change: -1.73% Independent.co.uk Daily average browsers: 471,917 Month-on-month change: -4.15% Year-on-year change: +22.21% Monthly browsers: 10,320,996 Monthly change: -2.56% • 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".