News24 reaches 2 million South Africans
2010-04-30 12:02
News24's two million domestic unique brower success signals maturity in the local internet market.
Social media, mobile phone access and rich content impacts user behaviour
Cape Town - News24 has become the first South African website and online news destination to reach more than two million domestic unique browsers in a month, highlighting the growth in South Africa’s digital audience. The site has also experienced exceptional total growth, including international readership reaching more than 2.8 million global visitors monthly.
News24’s local ground breaking success is off the back of maturing user behaviour as more South Africans accept digital devices as their medium of preference to consume news and information, a trend that has attracted over 170 000 local visitors to News24.com on a daily basis, more than double the nearest alternative news destination.
Jannie Momberg, News24 Editor says, “The barriers to digital consumption are falling further every day. There is no doubt that cheaper bandwidth, access via mobile devices and social media have played a huge part in increasing South African’s appetites for on-demand news content. As the country’s leading digital news brand across the internet, mobile and interactive television, we are perfectly positioned to service this need.”
Its mobile offering, m.news24.com, is a case in point. Traffic to the News24 WAP destination has increased by more than 124% since February 2010 and is still going strong.
He added that the rapid growth in social media has played an integral role in providing South Africans with regular news and information updates as stories develop. “We live by three rules: content, community and engagement. MyNews24.co.za, our citizen journalism hub, shows off the benefits of this approach where user-generated content offerings have significantly increased our traction by creating a two-way platform for users to engage with the news of the day, giving it more depth and public perspective,” suggests Momberg.
This, coupled with providing up-to-the-second breaking news on stories such as the Eugene Terre'Blanche murder – which itself generated a huge spike in traffic during April – has put News24 in good stead with its audience. “Editorially, technically and from the business side, a lot of work has been done behind the scenes in recent years to create a trusted platform for all South African internet users,” explains Momberg.
“Given no other news site to date has surpassed the one million local UB mark – something we achieved in October 2007 - the two million South Africans per month milestone is a major achievement and proves we are on the cutting-edge of local internet engagement.”
About News24
News24 is South Africa's largest digital news brand reaching more than a million South Africans monthly on the Web - as measured by Nielsen’s Online Market Intelligence (MI) in April 2010 - on mobile phones and interactive TV. With the largest digital news community in SA, News24 features the latest news and a place for readers to have their say, air their views, and join in the conversation on the latest headlines and issues of the day. For more information, visit www.news24.com, or m.news24.com via a mobile phone.