GS Home Shopping, a major South Korean home shopping operator, said Tuesday it has added a Chinese-language shopping channel in Malaysia to target deep-pocketed consumers in the Southeast Asian nation.

The retail unit of GS Group joined hands with Astro Malaysia Holdings, a local broadcaster, to launch a shopping channel called "Go Shop" in January to target 4.6 million households in Malaysia.

GS Home Shopping said it decided to open the Chinese-language channel to better woo Malaysians of Chinese descent, who account for a quarter of the 30 million population and are a powerful consumer group in the nation.

The Korean firm said Go Shop already has about 1 million viewers who speak Chinese, and 7 out of 10 said in a survey that they want to buy items advertised on the channel.  

GS Home Shopping has launched shopping channels in eight countries, including China, India, Thailand and Turkey, to reach out to growing middle-class consumers in the emerging economies. (Yonhap)