LONDON: UK newsbrands reach more than three quarters of the country's smartphone audience new data has shown.

Figures from digital measurement firm comScore – the first following the recent introduction of its Mobile Metrix tool to the UK – revealed that newsbrands reached 22.4m people on smartphones in January, or 78% of the total smartphone audience, Newsworks reported.

More people are now accessing digital news via smartphones than by PC, which reached a total of 20.1m people.

Further, newsbrands reached 9.1m unique visitors on tablets, accounting for 44% of the total tablet audience.

Overall, newsbrands could boast a total digital reach of 37.1m across the course of the month.

The Mobile Metrix tool also contains information on the duration of app usage. In January, the average newsbrand app user spent a total of 230 minutes reading on a smartphone (this averaged across MailOnline, the Guardian, Sun, Mirror and Times).

Some 238 minutes were spent reading on an iPad app (averaged across MailOnline, the Guardian, Mirror and Times).

Taking the BBC as a reference point in such digital matters, Newsworks highlighted the greater length of time being spent on newsbrands apps – 60% more in the case of smartphones and 102% more in the case of iPads.

MailOnline claimed the greatest mobile reach, with 15.5m smartphone readers and 5.4m tablet readers, followed by the Mirror, with comparable figures of 13.7m and 3.6m.

In third place was the Guardian, with 12.1m smartphone readers and 3.9m tablet readers, with the Telegraph lagging behind on 9.6m and 3.7m respectively.

Paywalls restricted the Sun to just 2.5m mobile readers across the month, three quarters of whom came via smartphone. The 1.2m readers of its broadsheet sister paper The Times were split roughly evenly between smartphone and tablet.

The latest data from the AA/Warc Expenditure Report suggest newsbrands will receive their highest-ever level of digital ad revenues this year. The Report also finds that digital adspend for national newsbrands surpassed the £200m mark for the first time in 2014.

Data sourced from Newsworks; additional content by Warc staff