Amazon is the latest technology giant in India to target consumers with vernacular languages for its platform. To show its intent, the online shopping brand is letting users in the country browse and shop on its platform in Hindi.
The mobile-friendly Hindi version of Amazon.in is rolling out for the Android app, and also the mobile website, with iPhone users likely to get it in the coming months. Amazon, along with Google and even Microsoft believes that its next set of users in India will come from across the country, where languages like Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Gujarati among others are commonly spoken.
The website and even the support for Hindi, as of now is still a work in progress and will trickle down to other features in the near future.
Google at its recent Google for India event reiterated that more than 95 percent of video consumption on YouTube is in vernacular languages.
Google also highlighted that a majority of the Internet users are Indian Language users, and this number is expected to reach 500 million plus in the next two years.
Clearly, Amazon has sensed a similar trend, which is the reason behind localising its website for the market. But why Hindi and not any other language? Census data from 2011 illustrates there are 520 million people in the country who speak in Hindi, with Bengali ranked second with 97 million people.
At launch, customers would continue to have the search feature in English and will also need to enter delivery addresses in English. The Hindi experience is available on the Amazon mobile App on Android & mobile website.Amazon India
How to use Amazon Hindi Website
- Go to Amazon.in
- Click on the three lines at the left-side of the app/website
- Go to Language and choose between English or Hindi
- Whatever you select becomes the default language on Amazon for your account
It’s easy to understand Amazon’s intent to launch it on Android first. After all, most of its Indian users have been exposed to Google’s mobile ecosystem, that caters to consumers on devices ranging from Rs 3,000 and going up to Rs 80,000.
The team will continue to evolve the experience to add more shopping features like product reviews, ratings, question and answers available in Hindi over the next few months.Amazon India
The iPhone isn’t exactly a mass-market product in the country, so it’ll be interesting to see if Amazon really feels the need to launch the Hindi version app for Apple devices.
The shift in the Indian internet ecosystem is already taking place. Who will get the better returns from its vernacular investments, Google or Amazon? The challenge is surely vast, but not impossible.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)