Covid-19 reporting leads to Guardian Australia's highest ever traffic

In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Guardian Australia's national reach has more than doubled this month with 2.2 million daily readers, according to Nielsen data.

Guardian Australia's COVID-19 reporting has included a daily liveblog, data tracker, dedicated Full Story podcasts, a series of explainers, plus Q and As, travel updates, political bulletins and analysis, and stories of how other countries are dealing with the crisis.

Dan Stinton, managing director of Guardian Australia, said:

“The reporters at Guardian Australia have been working overtime to cover one of the biggest and most important stories of our time.

“The team’s rigorous journalistic standards and commitment to fact-based reporting and expert analysis has clearly resonated deeply with Australians, as evidenced by our exponential traffic growth.

“Our local journalism team works in partnership with our international offices to produce a constant stream of world-class breaking news, covering the pandemic and its many global and local impacts.” 

Sunday March 22 saw an overnight increase of more than 50% in traffic, as Guardian Australia reported on the various political messages and new restrictions around COVID-19. Mobile traffic accounted for 83% of the audience. 

Readers are also consuming more content, with daily pageviews growing from 2.7 million to 6.9 million in the same time period. 

This follows Guardian Australia reaching a record 6.5 million Australians in January, in the wake of the country’s bushfires, flooding and climate crisis.