Sweden is a nation full of newspaper and magazine readers. Nearly 90 percent of the nine million adults in the country read at least one newspaper a day, putting Sweden near the top of worldwide print media consumption (消费). Metro, the largest and fastest growing international newspaper in the world, was launched in Sweden in 1995.
From being just famous in Stockholm, the free daily newspaper, Metro, has exported its concept internationally. There are now 55 daily editions of Metro available around the world in nearly 70 cities across Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Metro is available in 15 languages: Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish.
The papers are available on weekdays, mainly to commuters (上下班往返的人) in busy areas such as public transport stations.
Metro editions are full of short articles, so that the newspaper can be read in 20 minutes.
In Sweden, the newspaper has 1.1 million readers. This makes Metro’s readership nearly twice that of the second biggest selling newspaper in the country!
The newspaper has managed to attract a young, well-educated audience in the cities where it is published, and the majority of its readers are under the age of 45.
For advertisers who want to communicate with this target group, an ad in Metro costs them a lot of money. Many have moved their accounts from the traditional daily press to this free paper.
Metro relies almost only on the money it takes from advertising to fund its operations around the globe.