Did you know 56.2% of consumers claim that acquiring information in their own language is more important than the price range? Building an app is only one side of the story, upgrading it to a global product is an entirely different thing altogether.
That being said, the importance of website localization, Android and iOS App localization, and website localization has become an absolute necessity. If you are not already on this crusade, you might as well hop on before it’s too late.
Some Important Facts about App Localization:
A survey of 2400 consumers was conducted by the Common Sense advisory to study the relation between shopping behaviors and language. Following are the conclusions of the study:
- The consumers that prefer reading content in their own language were 72.1%
- The consumers that preferred to buy a product in their own language were 72.4%
- Consumers that preferred being able to read in their own language to price were 56.2%
Another study conducted by the European Commission Study showed that:
- The number of users that choose their language when given the choice are 9 out of 10.
- There is 1 in every 5 users who never browses in a language other than their own.
- About 45% of the users claimed to have never bought products in a language other than their own
This should be more than enough to convince you to localize your app.
Advantages of iOS App Localization
In a perfect world, you could use one app for both iOS and Android. But we don’t live in a perfect world, and we have to decide the platform before we localize our app. There are a ton of applications on the Google Play store, but iOS has more promise of a smart money return.
IOS Users Tend to Spend More
The major goal of a localized app is to increase the sales return, so why not target users that spend more than the counterpart? Studies have shown that iOS users tend to spend a lot more money than their equivalents.
IOS users tend to have at least 45% of paid apps in their use and they are willing to pay even after the purchase. However, Android users only have about 19% of paid apps in their use.
So if you have an app that requires a monthly subscription, or in-app purchases than it is better that you target IOS users.
IOS Apps Also Make More Money
According to a number of reports, studies, and of course, App Annie -iOS Apps make way more than Android apps. The reason behind these stats is that iOS users are already deployed to pay for the apps and they are more open to paying for the monthly subscriptions.
On the other hand, Android apps are powered by ads and such. This method leads to a delayed return on investment. If you want a good kick-off than iOS localization is your option.
IOS Localization is Much Easier
The new iOS software is designed as if keeping the localization in mind. Here are a few reasons why that can be:
Multilingual Keyboard: the multilingual keyboards have made localization easier than ever. Now you can type in the language you want directly. In fact, you can even get suggestions from the autocorrect.
Helping Hand: Localization is way more than just translation. If you don’t get it right you can end up selling cardigans when there is a boiling temperature in the region. This is where the iOS has made life easier by being the helping hand, it serves the user automatically as per their region.
Localized Number pads: Did we mention localization goes way beyond translation? Well, that includes changing the date formats and number pads. Luckily, iOS already has that handled too.
Benefits of App Localization
Now that we have established that iOS localization is more beneficial than Android, let us see the benefits of localization overall.
Bigger Customer Base
When you tap into a new global market, you have tons of possibilities. The customer base increases significantly when you localize to another market. An effective localization breaks the cultural barriers and attracts the customer with the look that they identify with.
To really have an impact, your app needs to be properly translated and thoroughly localized. Even if you can’t afford to localize the whole app, try and localize at least the major pages.
Quick Market Penetration
When you localize your app instead of just launching it in the market as it is, it gives you a boost with the market. Not only do people prefer an app that is in their own language but the localization of keywords and metadata also help out in making your app visible to the users.
Better User Experience
Majority of people prefer that the app they are using be in their own language. Localization combined with all the benefits you are offering improved the user experience and ultimately leads to the popularity of your mobile application.
The users also believe understand your product better and make use of it more effectively if they can understand it in their own language.
Virality
The best marketing technique is the word of mouth, your customers are your best marketers. When people enjoy the app in the language that they prefer, they will spread the word around. And this makes your app viral in the respective market.
App Localization Best Practices
Just translation is not enough, you have to be very careful when you are localizing your app. For example, while “gift” means a present in English, it literally means “toxic” in Germany. So you may have to alter your name, slogan, and possibly everything else in order to fit a certain culture.
Give the Language Some Space: literally, give it some space. Some of the languages are compact while others require quite some space. So you have to keep that in mind when you decide the layout of the app.
App Interface: make sure that your app has additional padding to accommodate the app interface in the other language.
Stay in Context: provide your developer the source content so that they can translate according to the context.
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