15 - 21March 2001

FT.com registers 25,000 Maltese hits

by David Kelleher

The Financial Times’ website, FT.com, receives more than 25,000 hits a month from Malta alone, The Malta Business Weekly has learnt, revealing a growing need for up-to-date business and financial information.
FT.com provides 24 hours coverage of the international markets and complements the print edition which is a market leader in the business newspaper world. Headlines and news summaries are updated 19 times a day, according to an FT presentation on its editorial content.
The website has over 2.2 million registered users in 239 countries, with an average of 1.7 million unique users.
Half of all the visitors come from outside the UK, with 17 per cent coming from the US and 17 per cent from continental Europe. The majority of visitors to FT.com are male (83 per cent) and the average age is between 25 and 34 (41 per cent), and between 35 and 44 (23 per cent).
According to Financial Times research, 37 per cent of users visit FT.com six or more times a week, 30 per cent, four or five times a week and 18 per cent, 2 to three times a week. Two thirds of all users visit four or more times a week.
Josephine Vassallo, of Standard Publications, business representatives of the Financial Times in Malta and publishers of The Malta Business Weekly, The Malta Independent and The Malta Independent on Sunday, said the FT was a favourite choice of international business newspaper among Maltese businessman and the number of visits to the website was evidence of this.