- • Newspapers are actually gaining in circulation worldwide, and rather substantially, by 10 percent between 2001 and 2005, to 479 million copies daily;
• Free daily circulation in the U.S. grew by 127.9 percent over the five years, to 3.3 million copies;
• By 2005 free papers accounted for 5.8 percent of the U.S. newspaper market by circulation, up from 2.5 percent;
• In Europe, free papers had grown to make up 15.3 percent of all daily newspaper circulation, up from 7.6 percent, having grown 104 percent over the period, to 16.4 million.
• The largest free daily in the world is Leggo in Italy, according to WAN, which has a circulation of just over 1 million. Metro in Britain follows with 977,000. The first entry for the U.S. is also Metro with a combined circulation of its Boston, Philadelphia and New York editions of 668,000.