Economist sees 46 percent increase in U.S. digital circulation

Economist chilies Digital circulation of The Economist in the United States has risen 46.3 percent in the past year, according to data released Thursday by the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

The magazine now has 198,426 digital subscribers in the U.S. and 625,552 print subscriptions. The combined U.S. circulation of 823,978 is flat from a year ago because the magazine removed 40,000 unprofitable bulk copies from the marketplace.

“Our commitment to circulation profitability continues to succeed as we have doubled profitability over the past two years, making our circulation business become the largest contributor of profits to The Economist Group for the first time in our 174-year history,” said Chief Marketing Officer Michael Brunt in a statement.

The United States is the biggest market for The Economist, with 57 percent of its 1.4 million print and online subscribers.

Worldwide, digital subscriptions are up 23.7 percent compared to last year. Digital subscriptions are now 28 percent of all Economist subscriptions, up from 22 percent a year ago.

Read the ABC report here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.