Article · 68-page PDF report

Indian Languages: Defining India's Internet

KPMG in India and Google · KPMG in India / Google Free Beginner India

This is the primary-source study most vernacular-content stats you'll see online actually trace back to, so it's worth reading before you take anyone's word on the opportunity. It gives you the real numbers on how many Indians go online in a language other than English and how fast that base is growing. Treat the 2017 projections as directional, not gospel, but the core signal (most new internet users in India are not searching in English) has only strengthened since.

  • Indian-language internet users were already outnumbering English users and were projected to be roughly 2.5x the English base, so English-only content quietly misses most of the market.
  • About 9 in 10 new internet users coming online in India were expected to be regional-language users, which is where your untapped demand actually lives.
  • Adoption is led by messaging, entertainment, news, and social, so the language your buyers read in is often not the language your English landing page speaks.
Open on assets.kpmg.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I run customer discovery as an Indian founder building for Indian users?
  2. Is it worth writing in Hindi or regional languages for SEO, or should I stick to English?

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