The Sunday Mail
The Sunday Mail has underlined its dominance as the most widely read newspaper in the country with latest statistics showing that the publication enjoys a 19 percent market share, which is way ahead of its competitors who ‘‘command’’ a mere 2 to 5 percent.
Statistics also show that The Sunday Mail’s readership increased by 4 percent margin during the first half of the year with local news, sports and entertainment sections drawing the bulk of interest from readers.
To add icing on its cake, the publication witnessed a rise in its ratings as the most up to date newspaper.
According to the Zimbabwe All Mass Media Products Survey (Zamps), readership in the last three months increased from 15 percent in 2013 to 19 percent while other competing publications such as The Standard, Zimbabwe Independent and Zimbabwean gained a measly 1 percent market penetration.
During the survey, 30 percent of respondents described The Sunday Mail as the most up to date publication, signifying a 4 percentage increase from 26 percent during the same period under review last year.
The results released last week show that other weekly publications from the Zimpapers stable — B-Metro and Sunday News gained 2 percent and 1 percent readership to stand at 5 percent and 4 percent respectively.
The quantitative survey drew 4 000 respondents from the country’s 10 provinces and targeted individuals aged 15 and above.
According to the survey, the number of The Sunday Mail copies read in six weeks increased 1,5 points from 2,8 in 2013 to 3,3 in 2014 as The Zimbabwean numbers of copies read fell from 2,6 to 2,5 points.
The percentage of people who had read The Sunday Mail a week prior to the survey stood at 34 percent compared to 32 percent during the same period last year while that of The Standard remained at 5 percent.
Online edition readership of The Sunday Mail increased from 1 percent last year to 3 percent this year with 23 percent of the people interviewed obtaining the copy of the newspaper from vendors compared to 22 percent last year. However, the number of household subscriptions decreased by 1 percent from 2 percent during the first half of last year.
At least 13 percent of the respondents said they read The Sunday Mail from cover to cover compared to 8 percent last year, signalling a 5 percent increase.
Other weeklies recorded between 1 and 2 percent increases in the number of people who read their publications from cover to cover.
