Readership of mX, the free daily newspaper from News Ltd for the Sydney commuter market grew a whopping 60% to 98,000 from September 2006 to September 2007 according to Newspaper Innovation. mX in Melbourne, several years older, grew 9% to 146,000 in the same period. Worldwide, free daily circulation reached 42 million in 2007. The complete roundup from Newspaper innovation can be found here.
Free newspapers are one of the strategies being employed by newspaper publishers to counter disruption brought on from other media.