The development follows Reuters' launch of consumer news websites in several global markets, including the US, Japan and China.
Azhar Rafee, who relocated to Hong Kong to lead Reuters' consumer rollout in this region, said India will be the next key local market launch in Asia, along with some form of pan-regional platform. "A lot has changed since the world went electronic," he said. "Technology allows us to aggregate a much larger audience at a lower cost, so having a pan-Asian site allows one cohesive operation that's cost-effective."
Reuters has also assigned China Media Solutions (CMS) to handle its pan-regional advertising sales, resulting in Lufthansa recently signing up for a specific campaign that utilises online geo-targeting to connect with Reuters.com readers in Hong Kong.
"There is an opportunity in the short-term to take English-language traffic that hasn't got a natural home, to be packaged and sold to pan-regional advertisers," explained CMS managing director Jonathan Hardy. "Core sectors are travel, finance and technology."
Rafee added that Reuters will target upwardly-mobile professionals and brushed aside concerns that the news organisation would not be competing with the key clients that still drive the bulk of its regional revenues via content deals.
"We believe that our agency clients bring a real value proposition to their consumers," said Rafee. "It's clearly a new revenue stream for us, but based on demand in the marketplace."
Reuters launched its D2C offering in the US in 2003. "A lot has to do with the fact that we have an asset that is large, from which we can develop multiple, derivative products," added Rafee. "There is an opportunity for us."