Asahi Shimbun was founded in 1879 and has a daily circulation of 8 million for the morning edition and 3.4 million for the evening edition. “The market for blogs and digital news and opinion in Japan is rapidly expanding, so this is a timely opportunity to meet that demand,” said Shinichi Yoshida, the company’s executive editor, in a statement.

The Huffington Post has also launched editions in the UK, Canada, France, Spain and Italy, and Jimmy Maymann, who was recently promoted to CEO, told the Guardian that the company plans “to get a foothold in 15 countries in the next 18 months.” In a recent interview with paidContent’s Robert Andrews, Maymann said, “We are giving a two-year period to break even and [launching] where we believe we can be in the top three or five in the news category in a given market.” The Huffington Post is also “negotiating” with publishers in South Korea and India.