The federal election led to a 19% increase in mobile traffic last month, with most traffic heading to the major news publishers, according to the latest research by Nielsen's Mobile Market Intelligence division.
Managing director of Nielsen's online division in Australia, Matt Bruce, said mobile traffic to news sites spiked on the day of the federal election and the day after (21 and 22 August).
Traffic also rose on 7 September when the three Independent MPs announced which party they were backing.
"The increasing ownership of Smartphones and more affordable mobiel data pricing plans have seen mobile Internet usage increase in recent months.
"The growth was given an extra jolt in August as Australians looked to mobile news sites via their mobile phones for updates on the election results and the subsequent negotiations with the Independents," he said.
Nine News, via ninemsn.com, reported the biggest spike, with a daily average of 21,113 unique browsers during August, up 27% from July.
Fairfax Digital's SMH and The Age sites were up 21% and 18% respectively, and News Digital Media's news.com.au saw an 18% increase.
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