25% of internet users believe search results in local languages are incorrect: WATConsult report

• By December 2020, WATConsult estimates that close to 70% of all internet users will access the internet in their local languages.
• A majority of Indians prefer watching content around Food, Entertainment and Education in their local language.
• Video content on Technology, Gadgets, Fashion and Sports are preferred to be consumed in English.
• 57% of the audiences watch online videos several times a day. YouTube is the most used application to watch and consume online video content, followed by Hotstar and JioTV.
• There has been a great transition in the music streaming market with the advent of global players like Spotify, YouTube Music, and others. The audiences prefer listening to music in their local or regional languages because it builds an emotional connect
• While browsing on social media platforms, more than one-fourth of the users like to consume content related to memes, videos, images, etc. in their local language.
• 43% of the housewives feel that there are limited options to choose the language on online shopping websites. Lack of this local language feature does not result in suitable experience that the customer is looking for.

The research was conducted among a sample size of 1,474 respondents during April to June 2020.

Heeru Dingra, CEO, WATConsult, said, “The report brings across a plethora of interesting data that can be further useful for stalwarts across industries. Since India is a diverse country with multiple languages and dialects, we believe that it is extremely important to approach consumers in the languages they prefer. While it is a mammoth challenge to process and train all the data for so many different languages, the insights presented in the report would benefit marketers significantly in chalking their way ahead.”