swissinfo, the multilingual news website of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, is gaining in popularity, particularly among Swiss abroad, an independent study has found.

Mediapulse, a market data firm for electronic media outlets in Switzerland, said on Tuesday that swissinfo.ch had 55 per cent more unique visitors in 2008 than in 2007.

During the past six years, awareness of the site, which now covers news about Switzerland in ten languages for an international audience, grew from 14 per cent to 37 per cent.

The study found that 94 per cent of Swiss abroad who used the site said they were "happy" or "very happy" with the content.

swissinfo replaced Swiss Radio International, a shortwave international broadcast that was phased out ten years ago.

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