HarperCollins, the publishing arm of News Corp, finished fiscal 2026 with record full-year sales and a fourth quarter in which publishing revenue climbed 14.6 per cent to US$566 million — up US$72 million from the same quarter a year earlier, according to figures released by News Corp on 5 August 2026 and reported by Publishers Lunch.

The growth was broad. News Corp's earnings release attributed the fourth-quarter publishing jump to higher physical and digital book sales, with strength in general books, the UK market and children's publishing. Digital sales rose 12 per cent. Audiobooks grew 16 per cent, powered by gains at both Spotify and Audible — two of the largest platforms for spoken-word audio.

For the full year, News Corp's total revenues across all divisions — which include Dow Jones, digital real estate services and the company's media operations — rose 7 per cent to US$9.03 billion, according to the company's investor relations release. Fourth-quarter revenues for the whole company reached US$2.34 billion, an 11 per cent increase on the prior year's US$2.11 billion.

On profitability, the publishing segment — the News Corp division that houses HarperCollins and its imprints — reported fourth-quarter EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, a standard measure of operating profit) of US$57 million, up US$7 million year over year. Foreign-exchange movements contributed US$3 million of that figure.

The strong close to fiscal 2026 follows a more uneven path earlier in the year. In the second quarter, the Book Publishing segment took a US$16 million one-time write-off, primarily tied to inventory at HarperCollins' international operations, according to News Corp's second-quarter results release. By the third quarter, Reuters reported that book publishing revenue had risen 8 per cent to US$555 million. The fourth-quarter acceleration outpaced both prior quarters.

For readers, the numbers matter because they describe the commercial engine behind a shelf of books. HarperCollins is one of the five largest English-language trade publishers — alongside Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster — and its results are a window onto what is selling across fiction, non-fiction and children's titles, in print and in audio. When digital and audiobook sales grow at double-digit rates, that signals where reading habits are drifting: toward phones and headphones, even as physical book sales hold firm.

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson, in the earnings release, described fiscal 2026 as concluding with "an exceptional fourth quarter." The company held its earnings webcast at 5:00 p.m. EDT on 5 August.