Election 2016 helps ABC News websites become Australia's #1 news website in July 2016

The latest figures from Nielsen Digital Ratings (Monthly) – July – show significant growth for the nation’s leading current events and global news websites.

The Federal Election on 2 July dominated news with Australians keen to see the election results.

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ABC News websites jumped to the top position with a significant unique audience increase of 30% compared to the previous month, to reach a unique audience of 6.5 million.

News.com.au also saw an increase of 14% to a unique audience of 6.2 million ahead of smh.com.au who retained third place with a unique audience increase on the previous month of 6%.

ABC News websites and news.com.au both reported large increases in smartphone engagement with unique audience growth on last month of 77% and 25% respectively for these devices.

The recently launched nine.com.au came in at fourth place, followed by Daily Mail, the Guardian and Yahoo7 News.

The Age jumped back into Nielsen’s top 10 rankings in eighth place with a 12% increase in unique audience compared to the previous month and notably smartphone engagement increasing by 37% for this site. BBC came in at ninth followed by the Herald Sun.