Social networking is no longer restricted to English language speakers. With Facebook launching support for regional languages years ago, new apps are being developed in the native languages of people and are becoming all the rage.
ShareChat is an example of one such app, which lets people share jokes, political views among other things in Malayalam.
There are over 4,00,000 daily active users of the Lightspeed Venture Partners-funded SharChat, as Economic Times reports.
Abilash Gopi Vavakkadan is an environmental engineer based in Kochi who spends hours using the app.
I have friends who have found jobs through networking on ShareChat. More importantly, I have made friends with over 150 people all over Kerala, who speak the same language and have similar viewpoints. This is a great outlet when one is forced to speak in English at the workplace.Abilash Gopi Vavakkadan
Networking and content publishing in regional languages is increasingly gaining popularity and spiking interest among investors. It is estimated that the market will be worth over $1 billion by 2020.
Entrepreneurs and investors predict that about 250 million Indians from smaller towns and villages will come online in the next 3-4 years and will be able to converse and create content in regional languages through these apps.
These apps however, will take around 4-5 years to mature and at least eight till investors can expect profitable returns.
Source: Economic Times
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