• Source:JND
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The diversity in languages, dialects, cultures, foods... is the soul of India. It has been helping India thrive across parameters like employment, social integrity, education and skills and more. In the last 15 years, with the evolution of new technologies based on the internet, the vernacular or Indic languages have been stealing the dominance of English as a preferred language to access information over the web in India.

The recent joint report of IAMAI-Kantar shows that in 2023, even in urban areas, 57 per cent of users prefer to access the internet in Indic languages. However, English is still the most used language to access the internet.

Shares of preferred languages to use the Internet in India (Urban)

English- 43%
Hindi- 24%
Marathi- 3%
Tamil Nadu - 6%
Gujrati- 3%
Telugu - 4%
Bengali - 2%
Kannada -2%
Malayalam - 3%
Other Indic Languages - 10%

Also read: Digital Platforms Main Source Of News And Information For 65% Internet Users In India: IAMAI-Kantar Report

What do users do using Indic language?

As per the reports, 84% of total videos consumed on the internet are watched in Indian languages. the share of listening to music is 73%.

  • 34% of communication is done in Indic languages
  • On social networking sites regional languages were used 24 per cent of the total.
  • 24% Online shopping was done using indic languages
  • 17% of total searches were done in regional languages

Dominant Indic Languages in Urban areas (Based on conversion rate)

Single state-centric indic languages, especially those being spoken in down south of India like Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam are the predominant local languages for accessing the internet, based on conversion ratio.

High Conversion Ratio - Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam

Mid Conversion Ratio - Hindi, Kannada

Low Conversion Ratio - Gujarati, Marathi, Bangali

Possible Reasons for High Conversion

- Internet users speaking a particular language have a higher affinity to consume content in their local language.
- A lot of content available in the regional languages
- Users understand the information more efficiently in regional languages.

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