Membership of The Times and The Sunday Times is now at 401,000 customers taking out a subscription to print and/or digital packages, representing a year-on-year growth of 22,000, News UK CEO, Mike Darcey announced today.

He was taking part in the Wired Innovation Roundtable at the Advertising Week Europe conference in London.

Total paid sales in February for The Times were 537,000 and 944,000 for The Sunday Times. Of these, sales from subscribers accounted for 54% and 36% respectively.

Around 172,000 are subscribers taking our digital only product, up 5% year-on-year, the majority of which are paying £6 a week for 7 day content.  In addition there are a further 229,000 subscribers taking either a print or a combined print and digital product, up 6% year-on-year.

News UK CEO Mike Darcey, said:

Passing this milestone is further vindication that charging for our content is working well and delivering a sustainable future for our papers. Access to great sporting action from our sports rights are all helping to drive sales but at the heart of the papers' success remains our award-winning world-class journalism.

The outstanding content of both newspapers continues to be recognised and this month saw them rewarded at the British Press Awards where The Times was named ‘Newspaper of the Year’. There was also success for sister title The Sunday Times, picking up two awards including ‘News Team of the Year’. As with the Scottish Referendum they are expected to play a key role in the General Election with their in-depth analysis and comment on the policy plans of the parties to help the electorate decide.

News UK remains confident that the “paid-for” strategy will continue to help secure a sustainable future for the news, sport, analysis and comment for all of its papers.