25 million people use UPDAY every month. In an internal data survey, the news service analyzed how their news consumption changed during the Corona year 2020 compared to the previous year. They looked at what topics and categories users were most engaged with, and in what ways European countries differed from one another.

Users were reading news much more frequently than in the previous year

Across countries, UPDAY users were more interested in news than ever before in 2020. The number of monthly sessions increased by 32 percent compared to the previous year. On average, more than 7 million users visited the news service each day, an increase of just over 16 percent compared to 2019. Well over 11 million people used UPDAY on the first Corona peak day - March 16. In 2020, use time also increased by more than a fifth. Ninety percent of users said UPDAY is one of their most important sources of information around the Corona pandemic. And for just under half of all users, it is the most important.

Publishers are also benefiting from the high level of interest in news on UPDAY. After offering users a brief summary, the news service forwards them to the pages of the media brands where the full story is available, and this generated almost 4 billion visits to publishers' websites in 2020.

In 2020, hard facts mattered

2020 was the year of news. This is most evident in the "My News" section, which is individually tailored to the personal preferences of UPDAY users. While "Top News" is curated by local editorial teams, here a learning algorithm suggests articles to users who can then read them in full on the respective publisher's website. In 2019, the most successful category in Germany, Spain and France was quite a flippant one, namely "Fashion/Beauty/Lifestyle." This was not the case in the Corona year 2020, when articles from the "News" category spearheaded the ranking across all countries.

The "Politics" category also gained in importance in "My News" last year. In Germany and Italy, it was right behind "News" in second place, moving up two places compared to 2019. In the UK and Spain, it advanced from fourth to third place - behind "Fashion/Beauty/Lifestyle".