The ABC monthly sales data for January is an important barometer to the health of any national newspaper sales trend, based on two criteria - firstly the level of recovery on December where consumer purchasing patterns changed markedly, and secondly the comparison to the previous year's January ABC sale.
Roger Eastoe, Group Managing Director of Trinity Mirror National Titles and Sports Division comments:
'The Mirror continues to show a positive performance judged by the two criteria outlined above with a January recovery level at +4.2% ahead of the market and a stable sale when compared to January 1999 and the market.
Within the popular market, our principal competitors showed significant declines, notably The Sun down 165,000 copies on January 1999, whilst still selling at a cover price 2 pence below the Mirror through the mid-week. Continued editorial improvements and enhancements with the launch of 'M' have played their part along with intelligent marketing driving our sales.
But the Mirror's success is not the only positive result in the January ABC.
Colin Myler's Sunday Mirror has also reached our objective of stabilising sales and throughout 1999 the title has shown a continued improvement in sales. The results are evident in the January ABC figures with a marked recovery of 7.6%, the best performance and well ahead of the market.
Likewise the January sale, whilst showing a small year-on-year decline, is one of the best performances in the market and by comparison the News of the World is losing sales at a fast rate.
The critical six months' trend data, August to January 2000, shows stable sales for the Sunday Mirror at just under 2 million copies, and the title outperforms every title including the Mail on Sunday.
The improvements made on the Sunday Mirror are testament to the energy and drive put into the title by Colin Myler and his team and a marketing and promotional plan which has delivered cost-effective results.
It's a delight to now have both the Mirrors enjoying stability in sales and it's due to the efforts and commitments of both our journalists and the commercial staff working on the national titles.
Our objective for year 2000 is to maintain this position.'
