India is the 7th largest country by area, the 2nd most populated nation, and growing at 7.3% per year, is now the world’s fastest-growing economy, ahead of the likes of China.

Although there are 125 million English speakers in India, this only accounts for 20% of the population, so what about the other 80%?

There are 22 official languages in India, with a further 122 major languages, and more than 1,599 dialects. Coupled with a variety of writing systems requiring specific fonts – localising content for the Indian market can be linguistically challenging.

The most commonly spoken languages in India include Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. There have even been recent proposals to add Hindi and Bengali to the list of official languages of the United Nations.

Because of these statistics, communicating with customers in their local language in India has started to become more commonplace than using English.

Digital India

Earlier this year, KPMG and Google commissioned a report, looking at India’s online activity; specifically focussing on language usage. The report highlighted that in 5 years’ time, 9 out of every 10 internet users in India will be Indian language speakers (536 million).

One of the contributing factors for this colossal growth is the prolific rise in mobile adoption across India. By 2020, there are set to be 750 million people in India who own a smartphone, which would make India the 3rd largest smartphone market in the world, behind the US and China.

90% of this demographic regularly use chat applications and digital entertainment, and half use social media channels and news streams. In order to keep up, businesses need to be looking to establish digital Indian channels, and advertise their services in the local languages. 

The e-Commerce landscape

The rise in smartphone usage in India has also led to an increase in e-Commerce activity – estimating the current market at USD 24 billion. Consumers will watch an advertisement on TV, and can now easily buy goods online on their smartphones. Just a few years ago this was not even a possibility for the majority of the Indian market.

Online payment methods for the Indian market still have some way to go, with 70% of e-Commerce purchases still being made via Cash on Delivery (CoD). Many banks and FinTech companies though are starting to launch innovative e-wallet apps, which are beginning to make waves across India.

With this increased adoption of smartphones, a rise in e-Commerce activity and easier methods of payment arising, the need for website and app localisation will only continue to grow across India.

Manufacturing and IT opportunities

The Indian Government has recently launched a campaign entitled “Make in India”, which is designed to encourage national, as well as multi-national companies to manufacture their products in India. This campaign has really boosted the local manufacturing industry in India, and has also attracted a great deal of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from a variety of sectors including automotive, energy, aviation and life sciences. India has already overtaken the US and China as the top destination for FDI.

As with the government’s “Make in India” operation, they have also launched a campaign entitled “Digital India”. The aim of this campaign is to provide support for technology, administration, business planning and infrastructure for IT firms. Big firms such as Google and Microsoft have already made massive inroads in this area, providing technology and font support for such services.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) now demands that manufacturers ensure that mobile phones have the capability to input text in English, Hindi and at least one other Indian official language, and must have a facility for reading messages in all 22 official languages.

Manufacturing firms establishing their presence in India need to comply with local legislation and localise their material, and IT firms (especially telecoms, education and e-Learning) will need to focus their efforts on languages too.

There is no doubt that India is fast becoming a vital hub for the language services market, with a multilingual talent pool, educated linguists, highly-qualified tech graduates, design and typesetting specialists and talented IT engineers. The US and Europe typically see the majority of established language service providers, but India is providing the demand, so language companies must now supply.