Singapore Press Holdings' online websites broke new records in March, with most of them recording all-time highs in both pageviews and unique visitors.

Latest numbers from Nielsen's Site Census confirm that SPH's Internet strategy of investing in and occupying new-media spaces appears to be on the right track.

Said Felix Soh, Digital Media Editor: "The robust growth of our websites, and StraitsTimes.com in particular, establishes our pole position as the media group with the best Singaporean and Asian online products. The growth figures speak volumes about the resonance that our websites have with the online community. We are the only media company with the full gamut of online services to engage our audiences -- from breaking news to citizen journalism to social networking."

ST.com, which was relaunched last August with a free breaking news section, has been attracting new readers. Month-on-month, ST.com's page views grew 24.4 per cent; while unique visitors jumped 48 per cent. On average, readers are spending 20 per cent more time on ST.com.

ST.com's Editor Joanne Lee said the numbers have more than doubled since the August relaunch, as the website strives to address the specific concerns of its readers.

"By mid-next week, for example, we will have a special microsite called "Overcoming the storm with confidence" which is tailored to address SME's concerns and help them learn survival strategies from companies who have ridden previous economic crises out successfully," said Ms Lee.

ST.com's sister websites also logged record numbers. AsiaOne, SPH's news portal that aggregates the entire suite of the company's websites, saw a 20 per cent rise in pageviews and 13.5 per cent climb in unique visitors.

Adrian Tay, AsiaOne Editor, explained: "Part of our strategy is to identify niche audiences and cater specially to their interests. Our luxury site, Plush, is one example of how we managed to target a certain demographic and cover the society news they want to read."

Stomp, a citizen journalism website which features issues and videos generated by readers, recorded an 11 per cent rise in both pageviews and unique visitors.

The websites, however, don't intend to just ride the Internet growth trend. Plans are in place to bring the news to the reader, rather than wait for the reader to visit the sites.

In January, ST.com launched an application for the iPhone which allows users to access breaking news stories onto their phone for free. In the three months since its launch, iPhone application page views have risen 130 per cent, while users have grown by 44 per cent, Over the next few months, SPH will also be rolling out Stomp and Razor TV, its new web television initiative, as iPhone applications.

But that's not all. SPH's Digital Media Unit is currently working on similar applications for all mobile operating systems, so non-Apple users can also enjoy SPH news on-the-go.

Said Raymond Teoh, Assistant Vice President of SPH's Interactive Business Unit: "We are constantly working on introducing the new media platforms to advertisers to position their message to their target demographic, and we're definitely seeing more advertisers keen to embrace the Internet."