Financial Times Chief Executive John Ridding said that Apple Inc's iPad and other mobile devices are driving 20 percent of the newspaper's new online subscriptions.

Ridding, who was speaking at an investor conference in New York on Thursday, said, The rapid emergence of tablet devices is a potentially profound development for publishers. The FT's iPad app had been downloaded 480,000 times, up from 430,000 downloads at the end of November.

Pearson PLC's FT allows people to read a set number of articles on its website each month before asking for a fee.

Newspaper and magazine publishers are turning to the iPad and other tablet devices to help revive their business, which have been beset by declining advertising revenue and readership.

Indeed, News Corp unwrapped the first digital newspaper created from scratch for the iPad on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)