(Reuters) -The New York Times forecast third-quarter subscription revenue growth above Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, betting on its plan to combine its core news content with more lifestyle-focused offerings.

By bringing together news and products such as Wirecutter, sports website The Athletic and games, including Wordle, it aims to improve subscriber engagement and diversify revenue streams.

Its shares rose around 5% in premarket trading as the publisher added 230,000 net digital-only subscribers in the second quarter, more than Visible Alpha’s estimate of 215,800 additions.

Out of the total 11.30 million digital-only subscribers, about 6.02 million are bundle and multi-product subscribers. Overall, its total subscribers stood at 11.88 million.

In a busy news cycle, NYT’s wide array of popular podcasts, including The Daily and The Ezra Klein Show, and newsletters such as The Morning and DealBook are also attracting customers.

The results follow The Times’ multi-year agreement with Amazon in May, marking its first licensing deal focused on generative AI technology.

The publisher expects subscription revenue growth to be between 8% and 10%, compared with analysts’ average estimate of a 7.3% rise, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Digital-only average revenue per user grew 3.2% to $9.64 in the second quarter, beating Visible Alpha estimates of $9.49.

Revenue rose 9.7% to $685.9 million, exceeding LSEG-compiled estimates of $670.7 million, while adjusted profit per share of 58 cents also surpassed estimates of 50 cents.

Digital advertising revenue surged 18.7% to $94.4 million, driven by strong marketing spending, while revenue from The Athletic, bought in 2022, climbed 33.4% to $54.1 million.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Vijay Kishore)