Language-learning Service Rosetta Stone Poised for Asia Push

Rosetta Stone has just announced that it will be making a stronger push in the Asia region, and is relocating its president of global consumer markets to its Tokyo office to work towards that goal.

Rosetta Stone has been around for a long time, and even today still sells their CD ROMs (here’s their Japanese language set). But thankfully, I see they have modernized somewhat, making iOS and Android apps available for free to its subscribers.

The company says that out of the $83 billion global market for language learning, that Japan and Korea make up nearly a quarter at $20 billion. The company’s CEO Steve Swad noted:

Asia has become a pillar of growth for us, and this move reflects our commitment to serving that market. We already enjoy strong brand awareness among consumers in Korea and Japan, and we’re working to gain traction in both our consumer and institutional businesses there.

For me back when I was studying Chinese, Rosetta Stone was the service that I always dismissed as being overpriced. Although I’m sure their target market is not poor students, but perhaps professionals who would like to pick up some new language stills on their own time – and among those sorts of people, there should be lots of opportunity to grow in Asia’s more mature markets, particularly here in Japan.

On a related note, one Rosetta Stone competitor, Duo Lingo, has just launched after months of beta testing. It has already been labelled as a PCMag Editor’s Choice language-learning tool, and you can read their full review here.