Well, well. Isn’t this interesting.

(Reuters) – More than 700,000 people use the Financial Times’ Web-based mobile application to access news and other content, making it more popular than the version sold in Apple’s App Store.

The business newspaper, which is part of British publishing group Pearson Plc, made a gamble in June when it prepared to ditch the App Store with the introduction of its Web-based app.

The FT was one of the first major publishers to reduce its dependence on Apple Inc and go out with an HTML5-based mobile application that can be read by any browser, thus bypassing the App Store.

FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw told Reuters that the new Web-based app was drawing more traffic than the version that was sold through the App Store.

“People who are using the app are spending much more time with the content,” he said. “They are consuming about three times as many pages through the app as they are through the desktop in an average visit.”