NEW DELHI: The BBC sites (consisting of all BBC sites visited by the Indian audience) had 43 million unique visitors in India in December 2020, the highest in the period post-peak pandemic.  BBC sites in India also saw 98 per cent growth in unique visitors in December 2020 v December 2019.

Overall, the BBC reported higher growth in APAC than the global average with a significant increase of 48 per cent unique visitors in 2020 as per AT Internet. 

However, it’s not just breaking news that saw success, the BBC’s non-news feature sites also witnessed a huge growth of 44 per cent across the region, with the highest growth coming from India with a 65 per cent increase year-on-year. 

In India, BBC Future saw a staggering growth of 143 per cent visitors year-on-year, while BBC Worklife saw 78 per cent, BBC Travel 30 per cent and BBC Reel 27 per cent.

BBC Global News India MD Rahul Sood said, “These figures speak for themselves. During the crazy global news cycle of the last year, audiences are turning more and more towards news sites that they know they can trust. The staggering growth in our features sites show that not only the audiences are having more time to indulge their passion points, but it also highlights the quality of the long-form content that we produce outside of breaking news.”