Graphic: Why you should translate your app and how

Facebook is available in 84 languages. Twitter can be accessed in 32 languages. Gmail is available in 58 languages. Pinterest is available in 31 languages. And WhatsApp is available in 20 languages.

Appreneurs know best that building an app is just one part of the deal, but growing it into a successful worldwide product is a different ball game altogether.

What are the benefits of launching an app into an international market?

• Gain entry into a market that your competitors haven’t explored
• Get a beginner’s advantage
• Tap into a non-saturated market
• Gain the credibility of being a global brand

But to market your app internationally, you need to launch it in different countries. This means you need to localize the app elements based on the cultural, geographic, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional concerns of each country.

Here are some statistics to support app localization as a growth hack:

• Distimo, an app analytics firm (now part of AppAnnie), conducted a study on 200 apps and found that within a week of introducing local language support, apps increased their growth by 128 percent in download volumes. In the next week, the apps’ revenues grew by 26 percent.
• In an experiment following Distimo’s findings, Make App Magazine found that simply translating an iPhone app’s keywords could increase the app downloads by 767 percent.
• A study conducted by the European Commission found that nine in 10 internet users in the EU preferred visiting a website that was in their own language.
• According to a test run by Appia, 86 percent of localized campaigns outperformed English campaigns in both click-through rates and conversions.

Here are the most commonly used languages on the internet as of March 2017:

Photo credit: Statista.

So, why limit the reach of your app to English speaking countries like the US when it accounts for merely 28 percent of the free download market and 34 percent of global revenues from iPhone apps?

To show the importance of languages in marketing your app internationally, Translate by Humans compiled content and statistics in an infographic. We used the following sources:

• Statista’s forecast of mobile app downloads
• Android Developers’ localization checklist
• Android Developers’ localizing with resources
• 6 things you should know before hiring a translator for your app
• 5 tips to market your app internationally
• How to launch your app in the international market