Zimbabwe’s most popular daily newspaper — going by its current print run of 50 000 copies daily — NewsDay has captured a significant portion of the market and is on a growth path, according to latest figures released by the Zimbabwe All Media Products and Services (Zamps) Survey for the first quarter of this year.
NewsDay, the first independent daily newspaper to hit the streets after the formation of the inclusive government, registered a 13% growth in the first quarter of 2011.
The figures released by the Zamps Survey show that overall market share for the largest independent daily by circulation, grew to 26% during the first three months of the year as the paper’s rival dailies lost ground.
NewsDay is published by Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) who are also publishers of weeklies — The Standard and Zimbabwe Independent.
The paper’s main rival The Herald had a negative growth of 7% resulting in its market share declining to 41% in the last three months.
The Chronicle also registered a negative growth of 17% during the period leaving its market share at 15%.
“NewsDay registered 13% growth over the past three months. Daily News and The Mail hit the streets when fieldwork was completed,” Zamps said. “Overall the dailies had a negative growth of 2% in readership.”
In just under a year, NewsDay has managed to draw its readership across age, sex and income barriers.
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The NewsDay brand has established a strong connection with young and old readers.
AMH group chief executive officer Raphael Khumalo, however, said the figures were not reflective of the dominance the group has had on the market with all its three titles.
He said The Standard had done well ever since its rebranding and slash in price as reflected by its circulation which has more than doubled since then.
“We believe the figures could be self-serving. As a company we are in the process of engaging auditors to look at our circulation figures,” said Khumalo. “We echo the views of our chairman (Trevor Ncube) that there is need to re-establish the Audit Bureau of Circulation.”
NewsDay is currently printing 50 000 copies daily, up from 10 000 at inception last June.
