Popularity ranking · South Africa

The 100 most popular Newspapers in South Africa

This curated ranking covers the 100 largest newspapers in South Africa, ordered by estimated audience size from Rascasse's anonymized search-behavior signals. Out of 872 newspapers tracked in South Africa, the 100 ranked here account for the largest measured audience reach. Daily Maverick, Daily Sun and Algemeen Dagblad lead the list with a combined estimated audience of 3.9M people. Across all 100 entries the average audience size is 135k, and the largest, Daily Maverick, reaches around 1.5M people in South Africa. Audience size is the estimated number of unique people in South Africa who actively engage with each newspaper, derived from search demand signals. Rankings reflect search-behavior signals collected across South Africa and are refreshed weekly.

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How to read this list

Rank

Position in the Top 100, sorted by audience size from largest to smallest. Updated weekly.

Audience size

Estimated number of unique people in South Africa who actively engage with this audience, derived from anonymized search-behavior signals.

Country share

Share of the global audience that is active in South Africa. A higher value means the audience is more locally concentrated here.

Avg age

Average age in years across the people who engage with this audience in South Africa, derived from anonymized search-behavior signals. A dash means demographic data is not yet available.

Female share

Share of women among the people who engage with this audience in South Africa. 50% is gender-balanced; values above mean female-skewed, below mean male-skewed.

Ranking

Rank Audience Audience size Avg age Female share Subtype
1 Daily Maverick 1.5M 46.0 41.9% Newspaper
2 Daily Sun 1.3M 36.1 47.4% Newspaper
3 Algemeen Dagblad 1.2M 43.4 60.3% Newspaper
4 The Sowetan 1.1M 37.3 52.2% Newspaper
5 Daily Mail 947k 40.1 42.7% Newspaper
6 Al-Ittihad (Emirati newspaper) 363k 35.8 31.0% Newspaper
7 Die Burger 338k 43.9 66.3% Newspaper
8 Beeld 327k 40.7 60.4% Newspaper
9 The Guardian 264k 41.2 54.2% Newspaper
10 The Times (Shreveport) 260k 43.4 60.9% Newspaper
11 Mail & Guardian 237k 42.5 35.5% Newspaper
12 The Sunday Times (South Africa) 222k 40.3 46.2% Newspaper
13 The Times 207k 41.2 43.5% Newspaper
14 The Stranger (newspaper) 203k 41.8 61.1% Newspaper
15 The Independent 190k 41.3 40.3% Newspaper
16 La Montagne 188k 42.9 48.6% Newspaper
17 Cape Argus 181k 43.3 63.8% Newspaper
18 Passauer Neue Presse 169k 40.4 57.6% Newspaper
19 National Catholic Reporter 169k 39.8 24.8% Newspaper
20 Daily Express 167k 48.6 66.1% Newspaper
21 Now (newspaper) 165k 27.6 12.6% Newspaper
22 Bild 161k 40.8 47.1% Newspaper
23 Daily Star (United Kingdom) 145k 42.7 35.8% Newspaper
24 Volksblad 145k 45.3 65.6% Newspaper
25 Automotive news 140k 41.0 30.9% Newspaper

Want the full picture for any of these audiences?

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Frequently asked questions

How is this list of the most popular newspapers compiled?

Rascasse aggregates anonymized search-behavior signals across South Africa and ranks each newspaper by its estimated audience size. Only entries with at least 5 measured entities are listed.

How often is the list updated?

The ranking is refreshed weekly from the latest search-behavior data and re-published as a static page.

What is the largest newspaper in South Africa?

Daily Maverick currently leads with an estimated audience of 1.5M people in South Africa.

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