FT’s web app surpasses 2 million users

Just 10 months after launch, the Financial Times’ web application has surpassed two million users.

Available directly through the browser at app.ft.com, the FT Web App is built using HTML5 technology and features automatic content downloads and improvements.

The FT was the first major news publisher to launch an app of this type and was recently awarded the Global Mobile Award for Innovation in Mobile Publishing.

With the app, customers can access FT content anytime, anywhere, on a PC and multiple devices, with one log-in and one subscription payment. Close to half the app’s have bookmarked it to their home screen, replicating a native app experience.

The launch of the FT Web App has significantly boosted the newspaper’s mobile readers and now drives 12 percent of subscriptions and 19 percent of traffic to FT.com.

In the last six months the FT has seen a sharp rise in mobile users, with increases of 52 percent on smart phones and 49 percent on tablets.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.