By Harshita Mary Varghese
(Reuters) -Media conglomerate News Corp beat expectations for fourth-quarter revenue on Tuesday, driven by a rise in digital subscriptions and strong performance at its Dow Jones unit.
The company benefited from strong circulation and subscription revenues at its Dow Jones division, which includes brands such as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and Investor's Business Daily.
Dow Jones reported a 6.7% increase in quarterly revenue, with total average subscriptions
to its consumer products rising 7% to nearly 6.3 million from a year earlier.
Finance chief Lavanya Chandrashekar said that digital circulation revenues grew by 10%, as more customers shifted from promotional to higher-priced packages.
"Their fiscal Q4 earnings, particularly the performance at Dow Jones, underline how valuable premium sources of news and information still are," Emarketer analyst Max Willens said.
Revenue at the news media segment, which includes UK's The Times and The Sun along with the New York Post, fell 3.7% due to soft advertising conditions.
The company announced earlier this week it plans a West Coast expansion with the launch of The California Post in early 2026.
News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said that the company is not "seeing any particular negative trends" from new search formats and is in the "midst of advanced negotiations with several AI companies."
The company's book publishing unit, which consists of HarperCollins, saw its revenue fall 3.5% due to slower consumer spending and a weaker slate of new titles.
News Corp's digital real estate services unit, which includes its majority-owned REA Group, posted strong results driven by price increases, with revenue rising 4% in the fourth quarter.
Total revenue in the quarter came in at $2.11 billion, compared with analysts' estimates of $2.10 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Excluding items, the company earned 19 cents per share, compared with an estimate of 20 cents.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
