Almost half of mobile device applications on smartphones and tablets are in their user’s native language, according to a survey of 800 consumers worldwide conducted by OHT-Mobile, the mobile division of One Hour Translation.
In the United States, 78 percent of survey respondents said all apps on their mobile device were in their native language. In the UK, the figure was 71 percent with Canada and Australia at 66 percent and 65 percent, respectively.
However, there was then a significant drop when considering non-English speaking counties. In Japan, only 37 percent of respondents answered that all apps were in their native language with similar levels in Italy (34 percent) and Germany (33 percent).
In the Netherlands, just 14 percent of respondents answered that all their apps were in their native language.
Furthermore, in the Netherlands, 16 percent answered that “none” or “only a few” of their apps are in their native language.
Nearly a quarter (24.5 percent) of all respondents answered that they would like to see more gaming apps in their native language and 23.6 percent responded similarly for news apps.
In Japan, a staggering 42 percent of respondents would like to see more news apps in their native language, and in Italy, as many as 31 percent answered that they would like to see more such apps in Italian.
A similar picture emerged among those who wanted more games in their native language – the numbers were especially high in The Netherlands (36 percent) and among French-speaking Canadians (29 percent).
“Many of the tech giants in the app development space are based in native English speaking countries, and as such, developed apps solely in English,” Ofer Shoshan, CEO of One Hour Translation, told eWEEK. “As an increasing amount of countries have gained access to smart phones and mobile- associated technologies, the demand for localized native language apps has increased dramatically. Until now any newly localized app would have to be uploaded to the relevant app stores, delaying the time to get the app to market.”
Shoshan said users often had to update the app in order to get support for new languages or updated translation—a process that was cumbersome, time-consuming and required a lot of coding.
The survey also revealed a differences in the preferred device for online shopping, depending on the country of the consumer.
Sixty-two percent of all respondents worldwide said their usual device for online shopping is still the desktop computer or laptop. In Australia, that figure rises to 70 percent and in the U.S., 63 percent of consumers prefer online shopping on their computers.
In the U.K., however, almost half (48 percent) said they prefer to shop on their mobile device, and in Japan, 51 percent responded that they usually shop online with a computer.
The survey also found that 58 percent of all respondents worldwide prefer shopping from a website.
In Canada, 67 percent still prefer to shop using a website or