Australians turning to fitness websites as winter sports recommence

Australians are flocking to sporting news websites and downloading fitness apps as the weather gets colder and Southern hemisphere sport heats up.

This is according to the latest Ipsos iris data, which found that almost 18.3 million Australians engaged with health websites and apps in March, with average usage time up 11.4% from the previous month.

Overall use of health websites and apps rose 1.7%, to almost 18.3 million Australians, with time spent on health news up 28.4%.

This recent burst of exercise coincides nicely with the start of the AFL and NRL seasons, with sporting news website up 11.2% from February, as well as the return to community winter sports.

The average time per person spent on sporting websites and apps rose by 29.8%, in line with the start of the aforementioned sporting seasons.

Younger Australians aged between 14 and 24 are driving the increase in health website and app audience, which is up 8.2% this month, with four of the top five apps used by this age category falling into the fitness and health category.

Meanwhile for the 15th straight month, news.com.au has held top spot as Australia’s number one digital news brand, with an audience of 12.944 million in March, up 4.2% month-on-month.