Digiday Research: Half of European publishers believe international expansion is important

For Europe-based companies looking to expand across borders, language could prove to be a hurdle. Owned by German company Axel Springer, Business Insider has expanded to 16 international markets, but not without difficulty. Despite its strong international following, Business Insider struggles to translate articles for each market.

U.K.-based Copa90 will avoid that issue by launching in the U.S., which has a growing soccer fandom that appeals to the publisher. French art-focused publisher Fubiz also expanded to the U.S. and London because its videos are produced in English, limiting the audience it could build in France.

Other companies are restricting their international expansion to Europe — at least for now. Axel Springer-owned mobile news app Upday opened six regional offices to enter 16 European markets. Upday has an exclusive partnership with Samsung that prevents it from appearing on iOS devices, making it difficult to expand beyond Europe, which favors Android devices. Apple, whose devices run iOS, recently grew its share of the smartphone market in the U.S. to 56 percent.

Not all European publishers are expanding. Some, like The Guardian, are downsizing to cut costs.

European publishers might now have more difficulty expanding internationally than they did a few years ago. The Independent broke ground in the U.S. in 2016. At the time, The Independent’s editor Christian Broughton said, “Facebook has been the gateway to the U.S. for us.” Before Facebook deprioritized publisher content in its news feed, The Independent grew a strong global following that encouraged it to expand internationally.

Post-Facebook news feed change, publishers will have to find new ways to build audiences that make international expansion a viable business option. Given the fears that the looming General Data Protection Regulation will reduce digital advertising revenues for publishers, expanding internationally, while challenging, could become a bigger priority for more publishers.