Quartz hits 1 million visitors in December

Joe Pompeo of Capital New York reports Monday that the recently launched business news site Quartz had 1.4 million unique visitors in December.

Pompeo writes, “It’s worth an announcement because December was only the third full month of operation for the site, which debuted Sept. 24 with a focus on reaching readers on mobile platforms like tablets and smartphones. The site clocked 840,343 uniques during the month of October and 858,183 in November, according to Omniture metrics provided by a spokesperson.

“‘We’re really happy with the numbers,’ editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney told Capital in a telephone interview. ‘They prove that you can do smart global business content and have it very quickly find a large readership that’s both international and on mobile and tablet devices. So it only increases our confidence in some of the guiding principals at the launch of Quartz.’

“Atlantic Media is making the Quartz numbers public as the company’s 155-year-old flagship brand, The Atlantic, is celebrating a third year of profitability driven largely by the success of its digital titles, theatlantic.com, The Atlantic Wire and Atlantic Cities. It’s also beginning to experiment with paid digital models for The Atlantic, although it appears Quartz will not be a part of that thrust.

“Asked whether the company was toying with a paid model for Quartz, Delaney said: ‘Not that I’m aware of. Our focus right now is not in that direction.'”

Read more here.