Media company New York Times (NYT) saw its stock fall by almost 8% on Monday after recording slower subscriber growth in the past quarter.
NYT added 260,000 subscribers on its digital platform compared to 280,200 estimated by analysts. It also represents a significant fall compared to the 300,000 digital-only subscribers added in the same period last year. The slower subscriber growth is attributed to consumers cutting down on spending and moving away from non-essential costs.
The slower growth could possibly prevent NYT from reaching its target of 15 million digital subscribers by 2027. It currently has more than 11 million subscribers.
However, NYT had a successful quarter overall. Its revenue of 640.2 million came close to reaching the $640.8 million expected by analysts, while the company’s earnings per share came at $0.45 compared to estimates of $0.41 per share.
NYT’s ad sales on digital platforms surged 8.8% year-over-year, marking the biggest growth since 2021. Additionally, the sports site The Athletic, which NYT purchased back in 2022, had an impressive revenue growth of 29.8%.
New York Times stock closed at $52.45 per share on Monday after a decline of 7.7%. The stock still remains 9.59% up year-to-date.