India adds 1 crore (10 million) daily active users per month to the internet community, having the largest additions in the world.
This has pushed the non-English internet user base, which is 235 million compared to the 175 million English-users.
Now, 9 out of every 10 new users are exploring the online content in their native language.
The primary reason for additions in user base is low data charges. In the past 20 months, data charges have come down by a 15-20 per cent.
This is following the launch of Reliance Jio from Rs 250 per 1 GB data, said Rajan Anand, Google Vice-president (South-East Asia).
The local-language internet user base is expected to grow at 18-20 per cent year on year to reach 536 million by 2022. The English language internet user base would be growing in the lower single digit to touch 200 million mark.
With a rise in the local language user base, it will open up local advertising avenue for advertisers and content creators. As per KPMG study, local language internet content currently attracts just 5 per cent of the digital ad spend and it is expected to go up to 35 per cent of the total $ 4.4 billion pie by 2021.
Indian language online ad market will reach Rs10,000 Crore by 2021! @GoogleIndia pic.twitter.com/vSsbl1rf9U
— Rajan Anandan (@RajanAnandan) June 27, 2018
Google is also working on more such products, to add Indian languages to its advertising product platform so that the local language content developers would be able to monetise their work by accessing the digital ad spend.
On Wednesday, Google India launched Telugu language support for two advertising products, Google AdWords and Google AdSense. It is the fourth Indian language to be placed on its advertising platform after Hindi, Bengali, and Tamil.
“Lack of monetisation is one of the big reasons we don’t have enough content on the Internet in the local language,” added Rajan.
According to Google, internet users are spending time on categories in local content which are similar to that of in English.
At present, around 169 million people are using the internet for messaging, 167 million for accessing digital entertainment, 115 million internet users are spending time on social media and over 100 million users are surfing the news on a daily basis in the country.
Correction: The headline has been corrected. We regret the typing error in the published headline, which mentioned the figure 1 Mn.
