Flipkart, Amazon bank on Hindi apps to tap the next 20 crore users

E-commerce major Flipkart recently launched its Hindi interface, allowing for its products across platforms (website and app) to be browsed in the language. Amazon, too, now offers Hindi browsing options on its website and iOS app; last year, the global e-commerce behemoth had introduced Hindi on its mobile site and Android app. These efforts are an attempt to capture the next 200 million users.

(Image Source: Financial Express)

Experts say the vernacular market in the country presents a massive opportunity for e-commerce players. As per a recently released report by RedSeer Consulting, there are 530 million internet users in India, of which 260 million users are ‘monetizable’. The report says a large share of this audience, 80% or about 210 million, prefers content in vernacular languages and are likely to drive the growth of consumer internet, with $300 billion in annual spending power. However, sustained efforts beyond just providing language options will be the name of the game, say experts.

After having introduced its Hindi interface, Flipkart is now gearing up to introduce audio-guided navigation on its platform to help new users on the platform. “We started with Hindi and the plan is to go ahead with other languages as well in the future. Within a year, we plan to introduce southern languages on our platform,” says a Flipkart spokesperson. Experts say Amazon, too, would use audio in some way to tap new users, given that it already has voice technology (Alexa). [Source]

Alexa kitne baje hein?

Only about 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people know English. Yet, that is the only language Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa, which was launched in India two years ago, understands in the nation. That is changing today.

The e-commerce giant informed that Alexa now supports Hindi, a language spoken by roughly half a billion people in India, as the company looks to expand its reach in the nation. Bringing support for Hindi to Alexa was in the works for more than a year, noting the unique contextual, cultural and content-related challenges that Hindi implementation posed.

Users can now ask Alexa their questions in Hindi, and the digital assistant will be able to respond in the same language. The feature, which will begin rolling out through a software update to Alexa devices starting today, currently only supports one voice type for Hindi. (For English, Alexa offers multiple voice types.) Watch the video to see her in action (Source: Quint).

In the months to come, Amazon said it plans to add support for multilingual households, which will enable members of the family to interact with Alexa in the language they each prefer. Amazon last year introduced support for Hindi language on its apps and website. It has seen Hindi usage grow on the site and app by six times in recent months, he said. [Source]

Most Of India Prefers Using Hindi For Search

A new report from Google titled “Year in Search: Insights for Brands Report” says that 70% of all smartphones-related searches in India come from Bharat. Hindi queries related to laptops and PCs have doubled while there has been a 2.3X increase in Hindi queries about smartphones and mobile phones. Also, queries in regional languages are growing faster than English in ecommerce categories like clothing, beauty, and personal care.

 “Indian language internet users are expected to account for nearly 75% of India’s internet user base by 2021, and Google search trends show a significant move in this direction,” the report said.

Vikas Agnihotri, country director, Google India, believes that the online space in India has never been more vibrant. “India has become the fastest internet consuming country in the world and the internet has now become the bridge to Bharat’s aspirations,” he added.

[Source]

PMI launches the PMBOK in Hindi

PMBOK® is now available in Hindi as well

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge better known as the PMBOK® Guide published by the Project Management Institute (PMI) has made a debut in India with a Hindi edition. Regarded as the project manager's bible worldwide, the PMBOK Guide is recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an American National Standard.

India being a fast growing country has taken up various projects across sectors like infrastructure, IT, construction, housing, railway, etc. Project Management plays a vital role in successful and timely running and completion of projects. Understanding the importance of project managers in India, PMBOK Guide has been translated to Hindi.

The Guide recognizes 42 processes that fall into five basic process groups and nine knowledge areas that are typical of almost all projects. Each of the nine knowledge areas contains the processes that need to be accomplished within its discipline in order to achieve an effective project management program. Each of these processes also falls into one of the five basic process groups, creating a matrix structure such that every process can be related to one knowledge area and one process group.

Google introduces Music search in Hindi

Google India labs has launched its online music service in India that enables users to search for legal music streams and downloads. It has partnered with In.com, Saregama and Saavn. The three digital music providers, hold rights to hundreds of thousands of Indian tracks - ranging from old and new Bollywood hits to Indian classical music.

The music search service currently indexes only Hindi songs. Users can search for a particular song, an album or even for artists. On clicking the search results the songs play on a pop-up window.

Google had first launched a music search feature in October 2009 for which they had partnered with MySpace, Pandora and Rhapshody amongst others. Music related search ranks high on the most used search keywords on Google.

Related articles

• Introducing Google Music Search (India) at Labs (googleindia.blogspot.com)
• Google Music Search India (googlesystem.blogspot.com)
• Google's Piracy-Fighting Music Search Engine For Indian Users Now Live (techcrunch.com)