WSJ launches Korean news site

The Wall Street Journal has become the first global digital news organization to launch a local language edition in Korea.

The site has already surpassed 2 million page views in its first week..

The launch of WSJ.com Korean edition is the latest development in The Wall Street Journal’s ‘WSJ Everywhere’ strategy, which drives the franchise’s development across new geographies, new platforms and new devices.

“We have built one of Asia’s largest news organizations and are ideally positioned—across geographies, languages and technologies—to deliver the flow of news and analysis the region’s business leaders and government decision-makers need to make better informed decisions,” said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Co. and managing editor of The Journal.

There are now 11 sites in eight languages, including German, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese.  International traffic has increased from 15 percent of WSJ.com’s total traffic in 2008 to 35 percent in 2012, while international visitors have more than doubled during the past five years.  Content produced by more than 2,000 journalists in more than 80 bureaus worldwide is now accessed by an expanding global audience in some of the world’s fastest growing markets.

Edited from Seoul for local readers, the Korean news site boosts WSJ.com’s Asian reach by adding to a series of digital local-language innovations already championed in the region.

WSJ.com’s Chinese and Japanese editions, launched in 2002 and 2009 respectively, attract more than 5 million local-language visitors a month.  Their local-language smartphone and tablet apps have been downloaded more than one million times.

Readers in Korea will instantly see the Korean-language edition when they go to WSJ.com since the site automates to the local edition depending on where the user is based.  The country site menu is located at the top-left corner of the page should a reader want to switch to a different language.  The country site menu is connected to the company logo as a visible indication of The Wall Street Journal’s commitment to expansion and serving international audiences.