• by Sara Guaglione , February 22, 2016

The U.S. digital business of celebrity and lifestyle magazine publisher Bauer Media Group, Bauer Xcel Media US, today announced that it grew its average monthly unique users in the U.S. by 42% from 2014 to 2015.

Its unique user numbers jumped from 15.9 million in 2014 to 22.6 million in 2015.

According to a statement from the company, Bauer Xcel Media now reaches 150 million monthly unique users worldwide.

Christian Baesler, president of Bauer Xcel Media's US operations, stated that his division’s properties started with only about 1 million average monthly users in 2012.

Now, their brands reach more than 25 million unique users per month in the U.S. “...we have built all of our audience through organic means, mainly focused on maximizing our social media engagement,” Baesler stated.

He referred to Bauer Xcel Media’s “unique approach” to content production, in which its editorial teams make decisions based on data. “Rather than simply repurposing print articles, our goal is to focus on trending topics that will attract the largest audience possible,” he added.

Bauer Xcel Media's Entertainment Group, comprised of InTouch, Life&Style and Closer, grew by 43% to 16.8 million monthly unique users in 2015.

InTouch grew by 80% to 8.5 million average monthly unique users, while Closer, a celebrity and lifestyle magazine for the demographic of women over 40, grew 90% to 1.5 million average monthly unique users.

The Teen Group -- consisting of J-14, M and Twist -- grew by 35% to 5 million monthly unique users.

J-14 remains the largest editorial teen brand on Facebook, with 5.7 million fans for the English-language version of the magazine and 3.6 million additional fans for Por Ti de J-14, the Spanish-language version.

This is good news for the company, which announced last November that M and Twist would transfer to digital-only formats after their January/February 2016 issues.

The decision leaves J-14 and Quizfest as Bauer's remaining teen-focused print magazines.