Commerce Electronique? Ja, bitte!

1999-06-12

Us anglophones might have a hard time with this but it’s a fact. English is not the most spoken language on the planet. And, despite any impressions we may have to the contrary, it won’t be the most used language on the Internet either.

Let’s face it, we’ve seen this before. There was a day when we though that all software in the world was written in English and, besides, anyone that was IT-literate was probably bright enough to speak two languages. When we went to export our products to the continent, to our chagrin we found that the potential user base would much prefer the software in the local language, and that competitor products already existed, written by our overseas friends for their own local market. Grudgingly, we had to admit that IT was not a UK/US phenomenon. And neither, shockingly enough, is the Internet.

By 2005, it is estimated, 57% of all Internet sites will be in a foreign language. Unlike currency, where convergence seems to be the trend, language use is diverging. This is very interesting. Yes, there is a global pool of customers out there, but they are expecting to be communicated with on their own terms (they are the customer, after all). It is likely that successful sites will be multilingual – indeed, if you’ve looked at sites in other countries, you may have noticed that a large number of sites exist in at least two languages. UK companies wishing to exploit this huge market of consumers, take note.

(First published 12 June 1999)