New Delhi: While Hindi is the most widely used Indian language online, users of Marathi, Bengali, and Telugu show more engagement, according to a report on digital language usage by Reverie Language Technologies. The engagement level of an Indian language corresponds to the average number of words typed per user in that language.
“ This data point shows us that users of these languages, especially Marathi and Telugu, which already have an inherent linguistic tendency towards longer words, show a greater propensity to engage with digital services and platforms, driving usage beyond mere passive content consumption,” said the report.
Apart from India’s major languages, the research shows that minority languages are also widely used online. Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Sindhi and Santali are the most widely used minority languages online.
The report titled Digital Indian Language Report (second edition) is based on analysis of the digital language usage patterns of 89,000 Android users who have installed Reverie’s Indic Keyboard Swalekh Flip app. “Around 99% of Indian language users access the internet from their phone, which is why we’ve chosen to highlight the consumer insights of mobile internet users in our report,” said Rishi Kudale, marketing head, Reverie Language Technologies. It was one of the companies working to enable regional languages on the BHIM app.
According to Kudale, most of the companies do not take into consideration the requirements of non-English users while developing their products under the assumption that non-English users do not have any significant purchasing power. However, the report breaks this misconception as 22% of Indian language users own high-end smartphones, costing over ₹11,000, he said.
Around 54% (majority of Indian language internet users) use mid-range phone models costing Rs 5,000-11,000.
“This shows how essential it is for phone manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to ensure that phones across all price bands have accurate, legible fonts and rendering in Indian languages for a seamless user experience,” the report said.
According to the findings of the report, 4 of the top 25 apps used by this user base are shopping apps - Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm, and OLX. Seven of the top 25 apps used are messaging and social media apps, and 4 are shopping apps, the report said.
However, only one gaming app was featured among the top 25 apps used. Sub-par Indian language experience limits the reach of these games, the report added.
The majority of Indian language internet users at 69% are from towns and villages with fewer than 100,000 people. Around 13% of users are from cities with more than 2 million inhabitants. Users from smaller cities and towns with 100,000-2 million inhabitants make up the remainder, at 18%, finds the report.
This large city vs small town + rural split has significance when it comes to localisation perspectives as well. Lifestyle differences exist between the two classes, meaning that in order for localisation to truly be effective, it must account for these differences in addition to the Indian languages used, it added.
According to a June report by Google, around 500 million Indians are projected to be online by June 2018. Most of these users, over 73% of them, will use the internet in their own language. This number will grow to over 530 million Indian language internet users by 2020.