The latest Audit Bureau of Circulations figures have shown the Australian newspaper industry has fared better than its U.S. and British counterparts during the economic and industry downturn, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Friday.

Year-to-year statistics saw just a 0.9 percent combined decline across metropolitan, national and regional newspapers for the three months to March 31, according ABC data. The Newspaper Works, a group formed of the country's three largest publishers - Fairfax, News and APN - drew optimism from the statistics believing that Australian newspapers are resisting the global trend of sharp sales declines.

The top three Australian newspapers - The Australian, The Herald and The Age - reported a combined sales increase of 0.2 percent for the week and a 0.5 percent increase for the weekend editions.

The Sydney Morning Herald weekday sales had a small increase in readership to 212,700 copies, while the other New South Wales major newspapers reported a decline. The Herald's weekend issue stayed the same at 359,000. The Daily Telegraph's weekday circulation fell 1.5 percent to 360,563 and its Saturday circulation fell by just 0.5 percent to 331,272, The Herald reported.

The New South Wales Sunday papers however, saw large drops in circulation. The Fairfax owned Sun Herald declined 4 percent to 480,000 and the Sunday Telegraph fell 2.7 percent to 651,872.

The largest decline was at The Australian Financial Review, also owned by Fairfax, whose readership fell 6.5 percent t 82,764 weekday sales, a drop of 5700 copies. The newspapers weekend sales fell 3.9 percent to 98,168, according to ABC figures.

Fairfax Business Media chief executive, Michael Gill, said lower circulation numbers is due to "corporate cost-cutting, reduced investor activity and redundancies in key sectors," The Herald reported.

The Australian had a 3.6 percent increase in weekday sales, with 138,765, and a 3.7 percent increase on weekends, to 316,174.