The leader in assessing the digital world, ComScore, Inc. on March 31 released its first report on the online readership habits of newspaper site visitors in Spain, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

The comScore report articulates that the total Spanish Internet audience stood at 18.3 million people in February
2009, of which 8.4 million visited an online newspaper site, representing a reach of 46 percent. According to comScore report, Elmundo. es was the most popular newspaper site, attracting 3.5 million visitors in February, followed by ElPais. com (3.3 million visitors), 20Minutos. es (1.9 million visitors) and ABC. es (1.2 million visitors). During the month, 402 million pages of newspaper content were viewed online, with Elmundo. es and ElPais. com accounting for more than a quarter of total page views.

Mike Read, SVP and Managing Director of comScore Europe, said, "With nearly half of the total Spanish Internet audience visiting a newspaper site in February, the online channel is undoubtedly an attractive marketplace for news publishers. As a greater percentage of overall news consumption goes digital, it will become increasingly crucial for traditional newspaper brands to be able to understand and quantify their online audiences and ensure that they are generating value for consumers and advertisers alike."

According to comScore report, out of 8.4 million Spanish Internet users who visited a newspaper site in February, 60 percent were male, and 69 percent were under the age of 45. The heavy online newspaper site users (defined as the top 20 percent of visitors by time spent in the category) spent an average of 3 hours per visitor on newspaper sites during the month, more than 4 times longer than the average Internet user.

The comScore report states that out of 34.5 million mobile phone subscribers in Spain in January, 2.9 million accessed news and information via browser or download. According to the report, total 7.6 million people around the world visited Elmundo. es in February, with 3.4 million of these visitors (45 percent) coming from the Latin American region.