The Wall Street Journal will publish its final Asian and European print editions next week, as the paper faces continued criticism for being soft on US President Donald Trump, coupled with some high-profile departures, and leaked interviews and staff memos.

But the paper’s global managing director Jonny Wright is still upbeat about its future, telling a media briefing in Sydney yesterday he was “bullish” about their business model.

“We are confident that we have found a business model that’s sustainable, that’s growing, that is predominantly mobile,” he said.

Wright said that digital subscriptions had more than doubled over the past two years in Asia, and by 40% in Europe, but print sales hadn’t followed. He said that while he had fielded quite a few calls from readers upset about the regional editions folding, the company was considering printing the US edition locally for pan-Asian readers.

“From a week on Friday the Asia edition and the European edition will no longer be available products and after 40 years … some people are upset about that because they’ve been reading the paper for 20 plus years,” he said.

“But you’re going to get that with innovation, you’re gonna get that as you find a sustainable, predominantly digital, predominantly mobile solution to professional journalism. But we’re working very hard so people who still want a print version of the Journal will still be able to experience that in markets. So it’s less of a case of shutting down and more of a case of relooking at that business model and that solution.”

[WSJ staff arc up over ‘soft’ Trump coverage]

The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp, has a partnership with The Australian, also owned by News Corp, and other publications around the world to share its content. Subscribers to the Oz also get a digital membership to the Journal, and the paper publishes content from the Journal in print and online. Wright said the partnerships were part of the Journal‘s international success, but hadn’t cannibalised its own memberships.

As to criticisms about the Journal‘s political leanings, Wright said that once readers were exposed to the paper, they usually changed their minds about it.

“People have a perception of the Journal content … and when you read it, we have a very clear delineation between our news and opinion content and we produce some of the finest journalism in the world,” he said. “When people experience that … it changes the perception. It’s indicative of why we shifted our approach.

“The Wall Street Journal is very proud of its coverage, international politics finance and business but we’re also aware that to properly penetrate other domestic markets outside our domestic market it’s good to partner.”

[Trump uses Wall Street Journal to undercut Rachel Maddow]

Dow Jones, the Journal‘s publisher, set a target of 3 million subscribers by the end of this year, which they are close to hitting, at about 2.8 million. And Wright said he expected to see a new, ambitious target once they do.

“At our heart we are passionate, not just about the Journal and our own but about professional journalism in general,” he said. “We are absolutely and other publications quite rightly have been quite bold in their goals and their statements … so once we hit three I think you’ll find we’ll announce another goal. We find that it really galvanises us.”

He said memberships were now the business’s biggest revenue stream.