With 80% of India’s citizens not being fluent in English, it should not come as a surprise that India’s digital future depends on the localisation of services. In May, KPMG released a report about digital trends to take over India this year, and regional languages featured as a major trend for the year. With internet enabled smartphone users crossing the 300 million mark in 2016, experts predict that this number will rise to 650-700 million by 2020. Moreover, the user base of consumers who used Indian languages to navigate the internet increased at a rate of 41% CAGR between 2011 and 2016, bringing the user base up to 234 million users.

Source: Techmagnate.com

“The number of Smartphone users will rise to 700+ millions by 2020” by Dhawal Sehgal, CEO, Dignitas Digital, a Digital marketing agency who also have a branch office in India and working with fortune 500 companies as a technology consultant.

With all of these factors in mind, brands and companies looking to reach out to a wider spectrum of their target audience need to start truly understanding the value of using regional languages in their content. As most social media websites now offer the ability to customize pages on the basis of language, brands looking to develop social media strategy can also benefit from the consistent usage of regional languages in their communication. In fact, with more and more brands in India relying on digital communication to spread brand awareness and increase sales, this should be a natural extension of their communication efforts.

Digital Platforms need to focus on regional languages

Think of your consumers who live in tier 2 and 3 cities. While they may not be fluent in English, they are certainly brand loyal customers who make their purchase decisions after much scrutiny. With consumers relying more and more on the internet for information on brands and products, the best way to take hold of the narrative and influence their decisions is to be able to communicate with them in a language that they feel comfortable with.

Expounding footprint by Redseer

Whether your platform is an e-commerce one, a web-based app, a blog or a company-specific website, you must build in the option for regional content to be displayed. A small step from a brand like this can even go a long way in ensuring brand affinity, and thereby more loyalty.

"Features such as full-screen displays, dual-cameras, biometric security and support for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are beginning to make in-roads to the mid-range. They will become widespread over the next 10 years," Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research said.

Indian start-ups focussing on state and language based business

Knowing that language plays a key role in communication, several Indian start-ups have already begun offering services that fall in line with the vision of being able to offer content that your consumers can understand. Reverie Language Technologies, recently acquired by Reliance Industries, is an example of such a start-up. Other companies that offer language services include Cloud 9, Senseforth, Indus OS, and vPhrase. While some of these offer translation services, others offer analytics and insights gleaned across markets and presented in various vernacular languages, which can be extremely helpful for brands looking to communicate facts and figures across a wide client base.

India’s digital sector is evolving at a rapid pace, with so many consumers exposed to the internet and its content (thanks to the Jio revolution that’s brought affordable internet to the masses). It’s time for brands to step into this evolution by increasing their communication efforts.

The article is originally posted at https://www.harishgade.com/digital-future-of-india-localisation/