To reach local customers in their own language, Amazon is rolling out support for Hindi on its India apps and website. The move comes as the eCommerce company reportedly wants to make the country into a major market, The New York Times reported.
“The next 100 million customers will have to be in the vernacular language,” Amazon India’s director of customer experience and marketing, Kishore Thota, told the newspaper. Research discovered that eight out of 10 customers in India would rather use a non-English language while they shop.
In the future, if the Hindi language option proves to be successful, the company may add support for other major languages in India, like Tamil and Bengali. At the same time, digital payments firm Paytm, which operates Paytm Mall has started to let consumers buy items using one of 10 Indian languages. (Even so, many of the company’s listings are reportedly in English.)
A report by software industry lobby group Nasscom and consulting firm PwC India, “Propelling India Towards Global Leadership in eCommerce,” says that India’s eCommerce industry is expected to contribute to 4 percent of GDP by 2022 and could hit $150 billion by the same year, due to rising incomes and a boost in internet users. It also predicts that, during the next five years, the size of India’s middle class will surge to 540 million.
“A ‘Make-for-India’ solution approach along with a conducive policy environment can potentially make eCommerce a $150 billion market by 2022, with a globally leading compounded annualized growth rate of 35 percent,” the report said, according to Livemint. In addition, the study predicts that the number of internet users will nearly double to 850 million in five years, And the eTail market could grow at a compounded rate of 30 percent each year, surpassing $60 billion in market size by 2022.
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