Bucking the trend: daily sales of i newspaper rose above 300,000 in March

Average daily sales of the i newspaper rose above 300,000 in March, as the 20p daily continued to buck the trend of declining newspaper sales.

Sales were up 1.5% to 302,757 copies a day last month, according to the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures, released today.

The i has seen continued year-on-year growth since its launch 30 months ago and its sales have grown by 11 per cent since March 2012.

Once again, i saw month-on-month growth higher than any other newspaper. Its sister paper, The Independent, also saw a small increase in average daily sales, up 0.2% to 75,274.

Across the market, tabloid newspapers suffered minor sales falls in March, while the quality papers recovered slightly.

Sales of The Sun were down 0.11% to 2,279,492, with a 12.82% year on year, while the Daily Mail's average daily sale dropped 0.41% to 1,821,684 - a fall of 6.7% from March 2012.

The i was launched on 26 October 2010 by Independent Print Ltd, whose chairman is Evgeny Lebedev. It began life as a five-day operation, with a larger, 30p Saturday version of the i launching in May 2011.