14 Compelling Statistics About the Importance of Localization
When companies are planning to roll out a new product, localization can be a surprisingly low priority on their to-do list. Why? Because most of the time, there is almost no localization related discussion until the later stages of the development process. That’s why localization requirements will usually be assigned a lower priority and when the project gets hectic, those requirements will likely be omitted altogether.
Even though the importance of localization and translation have been proven time and time again, there are still plenty of traditional marketers and developers out there who don’t take localization seriously or just can’t convince their boss to prioritize localization tasks properly.
If only planning for localization near the end of the development process, the lack of solid pre-translation resources, which take time to prepare, may leave translators little room to maneuver, requiring the use of workarounds to overcome obstacles and often resulting in imperfections in the final translation.
To avoid this mistake, we’ve highlighted some of the freshest statistics that will convince your boss that localization is just as important as any other aspect of your business.
Mobile
1) 50% of the countries within the Top 10 for downloads and revenue in iOS App Store are non-English speaking countries from Europe and East Asia. (Source: App Annie) Tweet this stat!
2) 80% of the countries within the Top 5 for downloads and revenue in Google Play are non-English speaking countries from Europe and East Asia. (Source: App Annie, Q2 2014) Tweet this stat!
3) 92% of the Top 25 Grossing iPhone apps in China use Chinese names and the other East Asian countries like Japan, Taiwan and Korea lie between 52% and 76%. (Source: App Annie, Q2 2014) Tweet this stat!
4) 80% of the Top 25 Grossing Android apps in Japan use Japanese names and the other East Asian countries like Taiwan and Korea lie between 64% and 72%. (Source: App Annie, Q2 2014) Tweet this stat!
5) 41% of the total app revenue globally came from Asia, while North America generated 31% and Europe 23%. (Source: Distimo, Q1 2014) Tweet this stat!
6) App revenue in Asia increased by 162% year-over-year (2012 to 2013), while North America’s revenue grew by 46%. (Source: Distimo, Q1 2014) Tweet this stat!
Mobile Advertising
7) 86% of the localized campaigns outperformed the English campaigns in both click-throughs and conversions. (Source: Appia) Tweet this stat!
8) In a research study, while english campaigns had an average CTR of 2.35% and a conversion rate of 7.47%, the localized versions saw click-through rates of 3.34% – an increase of 42%, and 9.08% conversion rates – a 22% lift over the English campaign. (Source: Appia) Tweet this stat!
Social Media
9) 41% of prestige brands maintain at least one local country page. These local Facebook pages have grown at twice the rate of global communities and register 50% higher engagement. (Source: Facebook) Tweet this stat!
10) According to an experiment done by Nieman Journalism Lab, geo-targeted posts were 6 times more successful than posts shared globally. (Source: Mindjumpers) Tweet this stat!
E-Commerce
11) 72.4% of global consumers indicated that they prefer to use their native language when shopping online. (Source: Common Sense Advisory) Tweet this stat!
12) 55% of global consumers said they only buy products from websites that provide them with information in their own language. (Source: Common Sense Advisory) Tweet this stat!
13) 56.2% of the consumers in the study said the ability to obtain information in their own language is even more important than price. (Source: Common Sense Advisory) Tweet this stat!
Website
14) In 2013, among the Top 10 Global Websites, 79% of their users were outside America. In 2014, >86% of their users were outside America. (Source: KPCB) Tweet this stat!
Your Turn
Are you more convinced to give localization a try now? Read our free data report, “Why Localization Is Essential To Growth” to learn more about why and how you should be localizing for your app genre:
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Thanks for the stats, I think they illustrate the point best. Everybody knows localization is important, but not enough sellers believe that and do it in practice! They consider selling abroad and localizing their store by themselves. This comes down to a question of capacity and return on investment. In practice, it can be time-consuming and risky. Managing even a modest inventory across multiple markets and channels becomes unsustainable almost immediately.
I recommend that you check out this free guide. It will give you insights into ecommerce localization and how to go about it to ensure success. https://www.webinterpret.com/us/blog/ecommerce-translation-localization-guidebook/
Thanks for the stats, but sources would work much better as sources if they had links in them.
Localisation is powerful strategy to get audience engagement and for SEO purposes. Thanks for sharing such nice information
Wow, cool post. I’d like to write like this too – taking time and real hard work to make a great article… but I put things off too much and never seem to get started. Thanks though.
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