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Seriously popular: The Economist now claims to reach 5.3m readers a week in print and online

By Dominic Ponsford

The Economist now claims to reach some 5.3 million readers a week.

The figure has been arrived at after combining its total weekly print and digital readership totals and then taking out overlaps. The methodology has been rubberstamped by PricewaterhouseCoopers and involves combining data from ABC, The Economist reader survey, internal website data and other reader research.

The claimed weekly global readership total is as follows:

  • Print: 4,594,866
  • Web: 1,580,354
  • Tablet: 260,943
  • Smartphone: 265,575
  • Mobile web: 631,476
  • Net audience: 5,275,282

The net audience totals per region are as follows:

  • North America: 3,389,433
  • United Kingdom: 501,343
  • Continental Europe: 648,959
  • Middle East and Africa: 94,411
  • Asia Pacific: 546,546
  • Latin America: 94,590

The Economist claims to have a wordwide print and digital edition circulation of more than 1.5m copies a week.

In the UK The Economist has a total weekly circulation of 221,000 of which around 144,000 are paid-for.

The Economist operates a metered paywall which means non registered readers can access one article per week for free. Registered readers can access three articles per week after which they are invited to take out a digital subscription.

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The Economist is 50 per cent owned by the Financial Times and 50 per cent  owned by independent shareholders.

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