News Corp nearly doubles profit after online advertising sales and subscriptions soar
Rupert Murdoch’s publishing giant News Corporation has almost doubled its profit to reach a record $760m.
The buoyant results come after a boom in online advertising sales and subscriptions for the owner of titles including The Wall Street Journal, The Australian, The Sun and The Times.
Revenue shot up 11 per cent to $9.36bn in the year to the end of June, while net income increased by 95 per cent.
Yearly sales within the company’s news media arm increased by 10 per cent to $2.42bn.
Digital subscriber growth and cover price increases helped to drive circulation and subscription revenues.
The group’s book publishing division saw sales increase by 10 per cent to $2.19bn, thanks to publishing house Harper Collins and the newly acquired publishing firm Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
“Our provenance and principles endure at News Corporation, but the business has been fundamentally transformed,” according to News Corp’s chief executive Robert Thomson.
“We are vastly more profitable and have created a potent platform for even greater growth, to the benefit of all our investors and other stakeholders,” he said.