Publisher Pearson's interim accounts revealed that digital subscriptions for FT Group increased by 31%, to more than 300,000.
FT’s total paid circulation reached nearly 599,000, up 2% on the first half of 2011, reaching a daily audience of 2.1m according to the half-year report until 30 June.
The boost in readership lead to a £1m increase in adjusted operating profit for FT group compared to 2011’s £21m, although when proceeds for the sale of FTSE International to the London Stock Exchange in December 2011 are deducted, an underlying £10m loss is revealed.
FT Group – which owns The Financial Times and has a 50% stake in The Economist – revealed that it is to "accelerate the shift from print to digital" with continuing investment in digital innovations, including the launch of a Windows 8 app and the FT Web App for Chrome and Android.
The FT Web App, launched this year, now drives 12% of subscriptions and contributed 2.7m additional registered online users of FT Group, boosting the total by 29% to 4.8m compared to last year. It generated 19% of traffic to the FT.com website while mobile devices accounted for 25%.
The group said that the positive growth of FT Group had offset weaknesses for Penguin publishing, also part of Pearson.
Penguin has gone through dramatic reshaping over the past few years to align itself with the boom in digital retail channels, self-publishing and digital reading.
Last June, Penguin e-books experienced a half-year sales growth of 128%, and in 2012, revenues from digital books accounted for 19% of Penguin's total income (H! 2011: 14%) following a further 33% increase in e-book sales.
On 19 July, Penguin acquired Author Solutions Inc (ASI), a self-publishing service, for $116m to place itself favourably in the rapidly growing self-publishing space and launched online retailing platform aNobii in the UK, which recently attracted Sainsbury’s as a retail partner.
In the first half of 2012, Penguin recorded an operating profit of £22m, a 48% drop compared to 2011’s six-month figure of £42m.
The company blamed a "lighter first-half publishing schedule and less favourable product mix" and competition from bestsellers which "dominated" the industry – The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey.
However, the group has bounced back by publishing digital-first bestsellers Bared To You – a competitor to the Fifty Shades trilogy that sold 50,000 copies in its first week – and On the Island.
Overall, Pearson recorded a 42% decrease in operating profit – £76m compared to 2011’s £132m until June – and a 28% drop in pre-tax profit to £59m (H1 2011: £83m).
Pearson chief executive Marjorie Scardino said that conditions had been "tougher than expected" for the first-half of 2012.
She added: "We began 2012 planning for a challenging external environment and our caution was well placed.
"We’ve kept up the pace of transformation, continued our shift towards digital and services business, which this year for the first time will yield the majority of Pearson’s revenues."
