Pearson's director of global content standards Madi Soloman said earlier this week that the FT would be "committing to less print", with a five-year trajectory for having exited print in "substantial part".

According to Soloman, the financial crisis had extended the FT's print lifespan, but it was still planning an exit.

However, a day later, a second article appeared online in which Pearson distanced itself from Soloman's comments, going as far as to say that they were incorrect.

A spokesperson said: "We've got no plans to scale back the print operations. We have got 23 print sites, we are opening new ones – we opened Abu Dhabi this year and are hopeful of being able to commence printing in India some time soon.

"It is clearly something you would monitor over time. If you got to a point where digital was growing extremely rapidly and print was falling very fast in a particular geographical area, that might be something you’d want to look at on a case-by-case basis."

In the UK, the FT is printed by Newsprinters, which declined to comment, and Newsfax, which could not be contacted at the time of writing.