In our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report, we documented how international markets are sometimes even more ripe for online subscription sales than the US or EU. Notably, audiences in the Asia-Pacific region are more willing to pay for news than audiences in North America:

Given this data, it’s not surprising that the biggest business newspaper in South Korea, The Maeil Business Newspaper, launched an online subscription news service on Tuesday, and a number of other major outlets in the country are set to follow suit.Maeil’s print readership was 580,000 in 2011, according to data released by the Korea Audit Bureau of Circulations in December 2012, and so far 20,000 readers have subscribed to the paper’s PDF edition. The online subscription includes additional benefits to the PDF replica, but it’s too early for subscriber numbers. (However, sometimes a PDF edition can outperform a fancy, interactive Website edition.) Assuming an industry standard of 1% conversion, Maeil should be able to get 58,000 paying subscribers within a year.And according to the Korea Herald, “Chosun Ilbo, a conservative daily with the biggest paid circulation share in the nation, is slated to launch a similar service later this month, along with Media Today and Naeil Newspaper.”However, the Korean market faces some challenges, especially since the state-run news agency sells their news to major portals and audiences can view those updates via their smartphones without paying a dime. In mobile-heavy markets like Asia, mobile-friendly news is a higher commodity than desktop-based news. Therefore, Korean outlets may want to consider adopting a B2B strategy and selling real-time updates via mobile devices, much like PoliticoPro.