The 30p News International tabloid worked hard on the promotions front to earn its 5% rise, offering readers £9.50 holidays and the chance to win a £40,000 caravan.
Now in its 20th year the £9.50 UK holidays promotion ran over 25 days and has drawn a response that looks to have equalled last year's record, according to interim Sun and News of the World marketing director Rob Painter.
Editorial coverage of the John Terry sex scandal story at the end of the month also helped. "The Sun achieved its highest market share within the national morning popular category for 14 years," Painter said.
However, its year-on-year comparison was not so good, showing a 4.4% drop from 3,146,006 copies in January 2009. It continued with its discounted 20p cover price in London and the North of England, shifting 1,248,311 at this lower rate, compared to just 57,136 a year ago.
The club of titles showing a year-on-year increase was formed exclusively of Richard Desmond's Daily Star, up 1.4% to 768,534 copies.
Making up the rather larger pool of papers suffering double-digit declines were, in increasing order of severity, the Daily Mirror (down 10.9% to 1,366,891), The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian and The Times.
The Times was hit by a 17.7% decline in circulation from 617,483 to 508,250 copies, although it cut its bulks from 55,604 in January 2009 to zero last month.
The Guardian has also cut out all its bulks, of which it distributed 14,839 in January 2009. This played a sizeable part in its 15.8% year-on-year drop to 302,285 copies.
The paper is currently dangerously close to dipping below 300,000 copies, having hit a low of 300,540 in December 2009.
In contrast to The Guardian, The Independent increased bulks from 40,880 out of a total of 215,504 copies in January 2009 to 47,233 out of a total of 185,815 copies last month.
The Daily Mail also slipped in a sizeable increase in bulks from 100,271 to 117,555, leaving its year-on-year headline circulation down just 3.6% to 2,120,347 copies.
The Racing Post's accountants will be cursing the snow for a 16.3% year-on-year drop in its sales to 47,976.
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