Reach 80% of Global Internet Users by using only 10 Languages

At Voiceover.Cafe we monitor on-line language usage for marketing and communications, in order to support our video translation, voiceover and localisation requirements.

Although we offer multilingual services in over 40 global languages, the majority of our business is based in the top 10 languages used on the internet.

What is really interesting on the stats below is how the number of internet users has now reached almost half of the world’s population of around 3.4 Billion with English and Chinese users running neck and neck at 1.4 Billion each.

Top Ten Languages Used in the Web – November 30, 2015

(Number of Internet Users by Language) Source: Internet World Stats.

Language Internet
Users
Internet
Penetration
(% Population)
Growth Users
(15 years)
Global %’age World Population
(for this language)
English 873M 62% 520% 26%  1,398M
Chinese  704M  50%  2,081%  21%  1,398M
Spanish  257M  58%  1,312%  8%  441M
Arabic  168M  45%  6,593%  5%  375M
Portugese  132M  50%  1,641%  4%  263M
Japanese  115M  91%  144%  3%  127M
Russian  103M  71%  3,227%  3%  146M
Malay  99M  35%  1,626%  3%  287M
French  98M  25%  715%  3%  385M
German  84M  88%  204%  3%  95M
TOP 10 TOTAL 2633M  53%  787%  78%  4,917M
Other  734M  31%  1,043%  22%  2,343M
WORLD TOTAL  3367M  46%  833%  100%  7,260M

Chinese, Arabic, Malay and Russian have seen the greatest growth of new users over the past few years and the Chinese will in all probability continue exponentially with its online growth.

Another interesting fact is that the six official languages of the United Nations (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) are all included in the table.

If you have any interesting facts about what languages you use for your localisation needs, we would love to hear from you!

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