The publisher of The Sun newspaper’s pre-tax losses have more than tripled as its partner paper The Times turned a profit, new figures have revealed.

The Sun and Sun on Sunday made a pre-tax loss of £91.2m, a more than three-fold increase from 2017.

This led to publisher News Group Newspapers reporting an operating loss of £64.6m last year – a huge leap from the £7.7m loss it made in 2017.

The company saw turnover fall 5% year-on-year to £401.4m.

News Group Newspapers is part of of News UK, which also owns The Times and The Sunday Times. The two broadsheet titles made a pre-tax profit of £9.6m in the year to 1 July 2018, a swing from a loss of £6.5m the year before.

The Sun has the largest reach of any newspaper in the UK across its print publications and online brands. Unlike The Times, its website remains free to access.

The Times said in a statement alongside its accounts its increased profit was “underpinned by growth in digital subscription and digital advertising revenues”.

The Times reached half a million subscribers in 2018 and the paper said this and the cover price of the paper “more than offset continuing industry-wide declines in print volumes and print advertising”.

HuffPost UK has approached The Sun and News UK for comment. 

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated incorrectly that the The Sun lost £92.2m in 2018. The Sun lost £91.2m.