Dave King, managing director of The Daily Telegraph, said: "We hold great store by the daily NRS figure as we think it is the true measure of newspaper reading habits."
The National Readership Survey Print and Digital Data (NRS PADD) gives a breakdown of daily UK reading habits of national print and digital newspapers. Today's data covers the period July 2011 to June 2012.
The figures reveal that The Daily Telegraph won out in the quality sector with an overall daily readership of 1.92 million, which, when the duplication between digital and print readers was taken out, equated to 1.87 million.
This was split between 1.38 million print readers and 536,000 digital readers.
The data should prove pleasing reading for executives at The Daily Telegraph, which while it has a higher UK circulation than its rivals, does not have the internationally reach of The Guardian's website.
Second-placed in the quality sector, according to NRS, is The Guardian which has overall daily readership figures of 1.59 million. This is split between 1.07 million print readers and 581,000 digital readers in the UK.
Third-placed in the quality sector is The Times with a combined readership of 1.33 million, split between 1.3 million print readers and 29,000 daily visitors to The Time website, which is behind a paywall.
The Independent is fourth-placed with a combined readership of 720,000 – split between 532,000 print readers and 188,000 daily visitors to the Independent’s website.
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