The digital revolution in India has got off to a roaring start. In just another three years, by 2020, India will see an Internet user base of over 600 million as compared to the current 460 million. 75 percent of new users will come from rural areas, buoyed by the sales of smartphones and 4G enabled feature phones. The projected numbers of local language users is pegged at a whopping 536 million by 2020.

But the anomaly is that the Internet is predominantly English, with barely .1 percent of content available in local languages. However, this is rapidly changing as companies are investing heavily in building up the Indian language Internet in order to reach out to this increasingly vast customer base that is still on the fringes of the digital movement.

The tools to negotiate the Internet in Indic languages have grown (open source fonts, keyboards that supports Indic languages, Google’s voice search in Hindi, and others), but products and services as well as content need to keep pace. Businesses and government are speeding up processes to localise digital content, products, and services.

The three main factors to be considered in the drive for localisation of the Indian Internet are:
- A robust language ecosystem
- Affordable language-friendly devices
- Availability of local language content

Benefits of Localising Businesses or Mobile Apps to an Indian Language
The introduction of native language supporting devices in India opens up a new frontier for businesses. A successfully localised product enables greater penetration into a market of more than a billion people. Sales get a tremendous boost as the customer understands the product better. Multilingual availability of the service allows for greater consumer trust in the product, leading to customer loyalty. With every new Indian language that is added to a product’s

digital platform, the business can better connect with its local clientele. Adeptly communicating in the target audience’s language guarantees an optimal buying experience for the consumer, which is the requisite for business success.

With every new Indian language that is added to a product’s digital platform, the business can better connect with its local clientele

The growth of the Internet will have a strong impact on businesses namely, media, logistics, financial technology, entertainment, travel & hospitality and e-Commerce. According to NASSCOM Akamai’s report, it is predicted that mobile phones will be preferred over other devices for shopping and will account for almost 70 percent of total online shopping. By 2020, e-Commerce is likely to double to $34 billion, which will be mainly driven by the online retail space. Mobile phones will be the preferred mode of shopping and will account for almost 70 percent of total online shopping. The Indian travel market will touch $40 billion by 2020, and online travel will account for 40-50 percent of all travel related transactions as opposed to only 12 percent in 2015.

What are Indian Businesses Doing to Localise?
The fact that Internet penetration has a long way to go in India only means that online growth and spending will increase exponentially. In January this year, e-Commerce business Snapdeal incorporated 10 local languages in its mobile platform. Paytm followed suit a month later, rolling out its services in Hindi. Quickr recently launched its platform in seven local languages. This expansion of online sellers into languages other than the elite English is helping drive bullish predictions for Indian e-commerce. Morgan Stanley predicts that total sales will hit $137 billion by 2020, up from $11 billion in 2013.

Not knowing English does not equate to being non-literate. Some start-ups are bypassing English altogether, building services for Indians who prefer to use their native tongue online. Shabda Nagari, is one such social networking site in Hindi. Mooshak, the Hindi version of Twitter, offers newfound opportunities for politicians to reach the Indian heartland. The fact that Hindi content on the web increased by 94 percent last year, five times faster than the pace for English content, indicates that services like ShabdaNagari and Mooshak are on the right track.

Foreign Companies Using Localisation to their Advantage
Foreign companies have been quick to embrace local languages as part of their localisation drive in this multilingual digital market. Chinese Baidu’s Mobo Market app store now supports five Indian languages. And much to the glee of movie lovers, U.S.-based online streaming service, Netflix is planning to produce its first Hindi drama. Google reported 50 percent increase in Hindi searches on mobile since the feature enabling Hindi search was launched.

The language localisation vision 2020 of India aims to bring about numerous opportunities in the localised digital space that would not only augment growth of the Indian economy but also lead to powerful social impact.