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PART 2:
WHAT BUSINESSES MAY BE MISSING OUT:
There are over 400 million non-English speaking Internet users today and
nearly half of all Internet users live in Asia and Europe. Internet use
is growing exponentially outside the U.S./Canada. Analysts estimate that
71% of Internet use and 56% of e-commerce revenue came from outside the U.S.
Recent figures show that 70% of the world's purchasing power and 92% of
the world's population live in countries where English is not the native
language.
Forrester Research predicts that in the next two years, online commerce will
reach $6.8 trillion and 50% of all-online sales are expected to occur outside
the U.S. The analyst firm projects that while the United States and North
America currently preside over the majority of online transactions, that will
shift in the coming years as Asia and European nations become more active.
Another important consideration is that most people think that a specific
language is spoken only in its respective country. wrong! For example we all
know that China banned pornography. But we should know that there are almost
100 million Chinese living outside China. 2.5 million of which are located
in the United States and more than 1 million in Canada. Another example
is with the Italian language, Italy has a population of more than 58 million
people and it has a population of almost 30 million people of 1st and 2nd
generation Italians living all over the world.
American companies are a little behind compare to the European counterparts
in terms of website translations. European webmasters are more inclined to
translate their pages even if it is a matter of a small site. This could be
explained with an inclination of Europeans citizen to look outside the
borders of the old continent in every aspect of life. While to most Americans,
it's the opposite. This is true also for the mainstream internet industry.
It is more likely to see a mainstream website translated in various languages
than an adult one.
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