Pearson boss outlines its digital future

PEARSON sketched out a digital future driven by online news, internet learning and ebooks, as the owner of the Financial Times recorded surging profits.

The publisher’s chief executive Dame Marjorie Scardino said the proportion of sales derived from digital output and services – such as teacher training – was more than 50pc.

She fleshed out a rosy future in which the Pink’un – as the Financial Times is affectionately known – would no longer be published in print format in some regions.

‘In places where our print run is very small, they’ll become digital places,’ she said, citing parts of Australia and west coast USA.

Pearson reported rising sales in all divisions except North American education, where lower school funding has hit sales. Pre-tax profit surged 72pc although operating profit – stripping out one-off gains such as the £412m profit from selling 50pc of FTSE International – was up 12pc to £942m.

Penguin publishing recorded operating profits up 8pc to £111m as ebook sales for gadgets such as Amazon’s Kindle soared by 106pc.

The FT Group saw sales rise 7pc to £427m, driving a 17pc rise in underlying profit to £76m.

A record 600,000 people paid for either the print or online version of the FT, its highest ever circulation, while more than half of US users opted for the web edition for the first time. But Scardino predicted that advertising revenue would remain weak in 2011 and would not return to ‘the heady days of 2001’.

She added that she was ‘a bit sad’ that FT staff threatening strike action had refused to accept an offer including a 3.5pc pay rise and no compulsory redundancies.

Pearson (down 47p to 1204p) has £1bn firepower for acquisitions.

Directors have agreed not to take a 2pc pay rise this year, said Scardino, who earned a pay and bonus package worth £2.5m last year.