The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) achieved stronger financial results than Wall Street analysts had forecast in the second quarter of 2021. This triggered an increase of more than 7% in NYT’s share price in the trading session on August 4. The shares of the New York Times rose 0.84 percent to $46.91 on Thursday.
Earnings per share for the second quarter reached $0.36 for The New York Times. Revenues in the second quarter reached $498 million. Both metrics were significantly better than Wall Street’s expectations. Sales grew due to the high popularity of paid content subscriptions.
According to the company, 8 million subscriptions are currently active for digital and print products of the New York Times media company. Digital subscriptions, however, are the main source of revenue for the company’s publications: more than 7.1 million of the New York Times’ paying readers subscribe exclusively to the digital edition of the publication.
The trend of paying for quality content is becoming increasingly popular. Among the factors contributing to the popularity of paid quality press subscriptions is the widespread dissemination of inaccurate news on free media and social networks.
Thus, readers prefer to use trusted sources of information, which require payment. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this trend is The New York Times Company (NYT), a newspaper with an excellent reputation among readers, a solid team of contributors, and extensive journalism experience. All of these factors combine to create a foundation for a successful digital business, which is likely to replace print publications more and more soon.
For the third quarter of this year, The New York Times Company (NYT) expects total revenues to grow by 13 – 15%, but digital subscription revenues are predicted to grow by 25 – 30%.
