NY Times says Wordle drove “tens of millions” of new users, record growth
NY Times says Wordle drove “tens of millions” of new users, record growth

                      
                      
          The New York Times' seven-figure purchase of viral hit Wordle in January was "incredibly valuable" to the company and was responsible for "an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times," the media giant said in announcing its quarterly earnings Wednesday morning. And while New York Times Co. CEO Meredith Kopit Levien said the "majority of these incremental users only played Wordle, many... stayed to play other games, which drove our best quarter ever for net subscriber additions to Games."
Levien said during an earnings call that the number of average weekly users for the Times' non-Wordle games "nearly doubled" during the quarter ending in March. The game "played an outsized role in the quarter's engagement and subscriber growth," she added.
The Wordle acquisition was part of a larger effort to make The New York Times seem "more valuable to more people by helping them make the most of their lives and passions," Levien said during the call.
Wordle has remained a free and ad-free daily offering under the Times' ownership. Instead of creating revenue directly, the game serves as something of a loss leader for the Times' Games subscription—a bundle that includes full access to its popular crosswords and other daily puzzles like Spelling Bee and Vertex. That access is available as a $40-per-year annual standalone subscription and in an "All Digital Access" bundle that also includes access to news, recipes, Wirecutter product recommendations, and the recently acquired The Athletic.
While the Times doesn't break out its Games subscriptions separately, the company says it netted 387,000 total new digital-only subscriptions for the quarter, including 312,000 that had access to its news product. The Times now boasts over 8.3 million digital-only subscribers, including 6.15 million that have access to news and an overlapping 2.56 million with "multi-product" subscriptions (which likely includes many Games subscribers). The Times' nearly 800,000 print subscribers also enjoy full access to its digital games, the company said.

          
                      
                  