Ipsos iris, Australia’s new digital audience measurement currency endorsed by the IAB Australia, has found that 20.3 million people used a news website or app in February.
This is an increase over January of 0.2%, according to the data.
In addition, people are spending more than five hours per month in February, or 18 minutes a day, consuming news content. People aged between 55-64 spent the most time-consuming news content at more than eight hours during February.
The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content, including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.
Ipsos iris, which launched earlier this month, provides accurate data about the 21 million Australians aged 14+ who access a wide variety of digital content and services across smartphone, PC/laptop and tablet devices.
See also: Ipsos iris officially launches to provide accurate data on digital content and services
The February data also found that Australians spend an average of 3.5 hours per day, or 94 hours a month online on a PC/laptop, smartphone, or tablet device, which was a decline of 12% from January.
The most consumed online categories by total audience size in February include social networking (20.9 million) and search (20.9 million), technology (20.8 million), retail & commerce (almost 20.6 million) and entertainment (20.5 million) and news (20.3 million).
General news is the most popular news sub-category reaching 19.1 million Australians in February and weather had the highest time spent with almost 3 hours per person. The reporting of news brands also includes the audience of media owner content distributed on platforms such as Google AMP, Facebook, and Apple News.
The Ipsos iris data also found that while people aged between 25-39 were the largest cohort online, people aged between 55-64 spent the most time online in February.
Leading the News category in Australia was news.com.au which delivered an audience of 12.719 million, a margin of 2.2 million ahead of the closest competitor, reaching one in two online Australians with an average time spent on the site per person of 31:40 minutes.
Lisa Muxworthy, News.com.au editor-in-chief, said she was thrilled that news.com.au remained the most-read digital news outlet in Australia.
“We have increased the gap with our nearest competitor to a staggering 2.2 million Australians. It is great to see Australians are choosing news.com.au and turning to us every day for breaking news, politics, lifestyle, sports and entertainment.
“We have a very talented team, they understand the audience and this result reflects their hard work,” Muxworthy added.
Ipsos iris fast food and delivery insights
Almost 13.5 million people have used fast food and delivery websites and apps in the last month, down -0.3% compared to January.
The biggest growth in using fast food and delivery sites and apps is among males aged 14-24 at almost 1.4 million, compared to almost 1.3 million women in the same age group. This age group’s growth climbed 9% month on month.
Australian mothers are the biggest users of the fast food and delivery websites and apps in February at 4 million, an increase of 3% compared to January.
