Despite losing readers due to heavy competition, Metro was the most read newspaper in the last two months of 2007, Newspaper Innovation reported Saturday.

Although Metro lost some readers in local markets, its national edition gained readers over 2006. The free daily recorded 1,571,000 daily readers in the last four months of the year, while paid newspapers Aftonbladet came in second with 1,255,000 readers and Expressen came in third with 1,040,000, according to figures from research group Orvesto.

The second free daily in Sweden, City, had 600,000 readers, while Schibsted's Punkt SE followed with 594,000. Punked is published in the country's top three markets, Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö.

City, published by Bonnier, is available in only two of the markets, because it has closed down its Göteborg edition, according to Newspaper Innovation.

In Stockholm, Metro had 650,000 readers, City had 512,000 and Punkt had 338,000.