Indian language Internet users to reach 536 million by 2021
Hyderabad, June 27: The number of Internet users in Indian languages is expected to reach 536 million over the next four years, contributing 35 per cent of $4.4 billion digital ad spend in the country, says Internet search giant Google.
The share of local languages in current ad spend of $2 billion is only 5 per cent. According to Google officials, the number of non-English language Internet users (currently are 234 million) has already overtaken the English users (175 million).
Four languages -- Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Bengali -- will account for about 30 per cent of non-English Internet users.
The number of language users is expected to grow at CAGR 18 per cent over the next four years to reach 536 million while the number of English users will grow by only 3 per cent to reach 199 million.
With tremendous growth in non-English Internet, Google has decided to focus on supporting the Indian languages.
On Wednesday, it launched Telugu language support for its advertising products - Google AdWords and Google AdSense. This will enable Telugu language web publishers and advertisers to reach out to the large base of internet users in Telugu.
The search giant expects the number of Internet users in Telugu to be over 91 million in the next four years. Among Indian languages, Telugu has the second highest propensity. It is the fourth language after Hindi, Bengali and Tamil for which Google has launched its support for advertising.
With this launch, Google AdWords and Google AdSense will now have Telugu language support, enabling publishers and advertisers to run ads in Telugu. It will also support Telugu language publishers to run ads powered by Google in the language to grow their business.
Content creators, who have websites and blogs in Telugu, will be able to sign up for Google Adsense and run ads on their content and attract advertisers from across the globe.
Announcing the launch of Telugu language ads, Rajan Anandan, Vice-President, South East Asia and India, Google, said expanding support for local Indian languages on Google ad platforms was aimed towards making India's Internet more useful for a billion Indians.
With 400 million Internet users, India has the second highest Internet user base. It is also the fastest growing Internet market in the world, adding 8 to 10 million users every month.
Rajan said that changes seen in India over the last 18-20 months were seen nowhere else in the world. The mobile broadband data truly became affordable with the charges coming down from Rs 250 per gigabyte to just Rs 15-20.
According to him, there has been explosive growth in all categories like search, video, social, messaging and e-commerce.
Rajan said the new users coming on board were very different from first 100 million users. The biggest different is 9 out of 10 users coming online are Indian language Internet users.
The new users were also comfortable accessing Internet on voice. He expected India to be the first voice-driven Internet market.
India was also likely to be the first Internet market where Internet would be consumed more offline than online.
Google is currently offering its top 8 products in Indian languages. YouTube supports 11 Indian languages.
"Eventually, Google will support all these 11 languages on its add platforms," said Shalini Girish, Director, Google Marketing Solutions, India. She, however, did not specify the timeline.
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AIITA welcomes Karnataka’s ban on obscene songs in school events
Bhatkal: The Karnataka unit of the All India Ideal Teachers Association (AIITA) has welcomed the Karnataka government’s decision to strictly ban school children from dancing to obscene songs during educational and cultural programmes in government, aided, and private schools across the state.
AIITA Karnataka State President M. R. Manvi congratulated the government for taking what he termed an important step to preserve the sanctity of education.
“Such decisions to safeguard the dignity of school children and uphold the values of education are the need of the hour. This rule should not be limited to government schools alone but must be strictly implemented in all private educational institutions as well,” he said.
He further urged the government to address other concerns within school programmes.
“The government should not only prohibit obscene dances in the name of school anniversaries, but also ensure that plays and dialogues that incite religious hatred are avoided. Schools should be centres of harmony, not platforms for spreading hatred,” he added.
According to a recent circular issued by the Department of School Education and Literacy, obscene dances are adversely affecting the mental health and moral values of students.
In this regard, schools have been advised to use songs that promote nationalism, positive thinking, the greatness of Kannada culture, and value-based traditions instead of inappropriate content during programmes.
The circular also emphasises that students should be dressed in decent attire.
AIITA also backed the department’s warning that disciplinary action would be taken against head teachers if such guidelines are violated. The association has further demanded that district Deputy Directors of Public Instruction strictly monitor the implementation of these rules.
