Quartz passes Economist in U.S. web traffic

Seth Fiegerman of Mashable reports that Quartz, the business news site launched less than a year ago, has already passed The Economist with its U.S. web traffic.

Fiegerman writes, “Quartz, the digital-only business publication launched by The Atlantic Media Company 11 months ago, saw its unique visitors in the U.S. surge to just more than 2 million in July, up from 741,000 the month before, according to comScore data provided to Mashable by Quartz. By comparison, the FT saw its U.S. web visitors grow to 2.4 million for the month, while The Economist‘s web visitors stayed relatively stagnant at around 1.6 million.

“Kevin Delaney, editor in chief of Quartz, told Mashable that the spike in monthly traffic wasn’t due to the popularity of any one particular story, but rather to consistent traffic growth and several big hits from social. Quartz’s top story for the month was about the mysterious cause of bee deaths, followed by a piece about 3D printing.

“;We’ve seen steady traffic growth since we launched as people discover Quartz and keep coming back,’ Delaney wrote in an email. ‘And because we’re so focused on social media, some of our stories can just take off and bring in really large audiences.'”

Read more here.