The Press's online readership is among the fastest-growing in the country, new figures have confirmed.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures for the second half of 2016 show thepress.co.uk's audience increased by 16.9 per cent year on year, to a daily average of 54,025 people.

It was the 15th highest figure in the ABC's audit of of 82 daily regional news outlets' websites.

Nationally, audience continued to grow at The Press's parent company, Newsquest Media Group, rising by 15.1 per cent year on year, to a daily average of 1.48 million people across its 160 local news websites.

In January, 27 million unique users visited the Newsquest network (source: Adobe Analytics).

Toby Granville, Newsquest Media Group's editorial development director, said “It’s encouraging to see Newsquest’s local sites continuing to deliver strong overall audience growth, whilst we are also seeing strong growth in user engagement in both returning visitors and page impressions. 

"Many of our sites now reach over 70 per cent of the adult population of their towns and cities at least once a month, giving our advertisers a phenomenally powerful local audience.”