Digital entertainment will see high adoption amongst regional language users: Google and KPMG report

Indian language internet users will drive the next phase of internet adoption in India and will be more than 2.5 times of English internet user base by 2021 

Highlighting the growth of Indian language internet users, Google and KPMG launched a report, ‘Indian languages – Defining India’s Internet’.

The report provides a comprehensive overview of the Indian language ecosystem and key behavioural aspects of Indian language internet users.

Indian language internet users will drive the next phase of internet adoption in India and will be more than 2.5 times of English internet user base by 2021.

The report also analyzes key categories of the internet ecosystem and varied adoption levels for the Indian language internet users. E-tailing, online government services and digital classifieds would witness highest growth in adoption rates across Indian language users till 2021.

Chat applications and digital entertainment will continue to have high adoption levels amongst Indian language internet users. 

The Indian language internet users has have grown from 42 million in 2011 to 234 million in 2016. Currently there are 234 million Indian language users when compared with 175 million English internet users.

Indian language internet users are expected to grow at CAGR of 18% to reach 536 million in 2021 while the growth of English users will be at a CAGR of 3%.

Nine our of every ten new internet users over the next five years will be Indian Language users.

Tamil and Kannada have a higher adoption propensity standing at 74%, while Hindi stands at 54%. Also, 88% of Indian language Internet users are more likely to respond to a digital advertisement in their vernacular language as compared to English.

The Indian language user base for digital classifieds will grow to 100 mn by 2021 and online government services, too, will add 131 mnIndian language users by 2021.