A pickup in sales of print books and e-books and another strong performance by digital audiobooks combined to lift sales 8% in the quarter ended December 31, 2024, over the comparable period a year ago at HarperCollins. Revenues rose to $595 million, while EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) increased 19%, to $101 million, HC’s parent company, News Corp, reported.

Digital sales at the publisher rose by a total of 9% in the quarter, to $120 million, with e-book sales up 6% and audio increasing 13%. Once again, News Corp executives pointed to the entrance of Spotify into the audiobook market as a key driver for increasing sales, with CEO Robert Thomson speculating that Spotify, along with Audible, have managed a change in consumer behavior that has favorably impacted the audiobook market.

Still, there was a caveat to the good audio news. New News Corp CFO Lavanya Chandrashekar noted that, since Spotify has now been offering audiobooks for more than a year, sales will be compared against Spotify’s contribution from a year ago moving forward, rather than reflecting a new source of revenue.

In a more general overview, Thomson said that HC’s U.K. business performed well, with sales spurred by multiple bestsellers, and its Christian publishing division saw another strong quarter, driven by higher Bible sales. In the U.S. trade market, Cher’s memoir sold well, as did sales of Wicked, which benefited from the release of the film based on the book. No mention was made of any contribution from the AI agreement HC signed in November.

In the conference call with analysts, the question of tariffs did not come up. Thomson did laud HC's strong backlist performance, noting that backlist comprised 61% of revenue in the most recent quarter—up one percentage point from last year. Thomson called the backlist "a platform for future growth."

For the first half of the fiscal year ending this June, HC’s earnings increased 21%, to $182 million, on a 6% sales increase, to $1.41 billion. Chandrashekar reminded analysts that, while News Corp hopes to see further profit improvement for the remainder of fiscal 2025, it will likely be “at a much more modest rate” due to difficult comparisons with the prior year, when sales of the Bridgerton series jumped following the release of the third season of its Netflix adaptation.