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| Vernacular content users on the web |
| July 1st, 2007 |
There is a huge ‘mismatch’ between potential demand and supply of local language content.
Against 60% of all regular online Indians ‘preferring’ to read in local Indian languages, only 12% actually check local language content online. If we count numbers, it means that on a ‘potential base’ of almost 15 million, only 3 million online Indians check local language content on the net.
It indicates low overall ‘relevance’ and ‘value’ of the existing local language content on the net. The yawning gap is largely because of the absence of ‘language’ equivalents of ‘popular’ online content areas like job search, email and IM, info search, online travel booking, shopping, music, e-greetings, social networking and dating. Ironically, the lack of local language content, if not corrected in time, may prove to be its nemesis in the soon-to-be most populous country in the world.
Table 1: Desired online activities in Indian languages (Top 5)
| Online activities desired in Local Indian Languages |
Existing Local Language Content Users |
All Internet Users |
| Sample Base |
1,388 |
14,253 |
| Email |
71% |
61% |
| Chatting |
50% |
46% |
| Entertainment |
58% |
45% |
| Search information |
45% |
33% |
| Online news |
51% |
31% |
| Not Interested in any of these activities |
7% |
21% |
Although 1 in 3 vernacular content users indicate English as their most preferred language of reading, it appears that they still read the available local language content as it offers value addition over English language content. 40% of this preferred vernacular content is primarily local news which falls in the genre of ‘regional news’.
The current vernacular user base is primarily South Indian
South Indians comprise almost 52% of the entire vernacular user base (against a much lower 40% share among all Internet users). At the language level, Tamil tops in the usage of vernacular content (along with Hindi) with 19% usage share.
Table 2: Popularity of ‘languages’ in the usage of local language content (Top 5)
| Language |
% of Local Language Content Users |
% of Preferred Language of Reading |
| Sample Base |
1,388 |
1,388 |
| Tamil |
19% |
13% |
| Hindi |
19% |
13% |
| Malayalam |
15% |
8% |
| Telugu |
13% |
9% |
| Marathi |
12% |
8% |
The profile that emerges of vernacular content users is of a slightly older, better educated, upper/middle class Internet user, with every second such user coming from South India.
Vernacular content users do not necessarily originate more from smaller towns.
Their distribution across town classes follows the overall trend for Internet users. Metros and urban uptowns account for over 52% of this segment, while emerging and smaller towns account for the balance 48%.
Table 3: Distribution of local languages content users by Town Class
| Town Class (by market size) |
Local Language Content Users |
All Internet Users |
| Sample Base |
1,388 |
14,253 |
| Metro |
38% |
37% |
| Urban uptowns |
14% |
14% |
| Emerging Towns |
18% |
16% |
| Others |
30% |
33% |
Google has a relatively stronger standing in this segment
Google takes the leadership position in this segment for usage of vernacular content. It is the most preferred website for searching local language content for almost 12% of vernacular users.
Table 4: Preferred websites for checking local language content (Top 6)
| Website |
% of Local Language Content Users Using the Website |
| Sample Base |
1,388 |
| Google |
11.7% |
| Yahoo |
8.2% |
| Malayalamanorama |
7.0% |
| Eenadu |
6.8% |
| Thinamalar |
5.3% |
| Webduniya |
3.9% |
Among the vernacular content users, Google maintains its stronghold even in the ‘English’ content areas with leadership position in 8 online categories. In comparison, Yahoo leads only in 5 categories (against 7 categories that it leads in among the overall net users).
Further details on the methodology of the study, evaluation criteria used, and calculation of the user-friendly index of websites can be checked out at www.juxtconsult.com . |
For more information on JuxtConsult, visit www.juxtconsult.com
For More Information on ‘India Online 2007’
Contact: Nidhi Dewan
nidhi@juxtconsult.com
Ph: +91.9811973230 |
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