Amazon.com Inc., has rolled out Hindi language support for its Android app and website users as the e-commerce giant aims to become the No. 1 player in the huge untapped Indian e-commerce market.
Although only 10 percent of India’s huge population of 1.3 billion people know English, most of the e-commerce services, including Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm Mall, are only offered in English. Amazon aims to break this language barrier for Hindi-only speaking internet users and tap the huge e-commerce potential.
Amazon is the second largest e-commerce company in India, a market worth $33 billion. Morgan Stanley expects India’s e-commerce market to grow to $200 billion in a decade.
“The next 100 million customers will have to be in the vernacular language,” said Kishore Thota, director of customer experience and marketing for Amazon India.
The company has about 150 million registered users in the country. Flipkart, along with its subsidiaries Myntra and Jabong, is ahead of Amazon in India’s online retail market.
Amazon says that its research found that eight out of 10 Indian customers preferred to shop in a language other than English. “The level of trust increases when they see something in their own language,” Thota said in an interview at Amazon’s India headquarters in Bangalore, NY Times report.
Amazon also plans provide support for more local Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil and Telugu, and will also extend the services to other mobile platforms as well.
The site is a bid to make deeper inroads into India’s fast-growing e-commerce market, stepping up its battle with Walmart’s Flipkart unit, Reuters reported.
“What we believe is, Amazon.in in Hindi is a critical step to actually address the next 100 million customers,” Manish Tiwary, vice president of category management at Amazon India, told reporters at a news conference, the report said.
Amazon is looking to win over the next 100 million customers in the country, its India head Amit Agarwal told Reuters in April. The country’s e-commerce market is tipped to grow to $200 billion in a decade, according to Morgan Stanley, it said.
Flipkart, along with its fashion units Myntra and Jabong, is slightly ahead of Amazon in India’s online retail, according to Forrester estimates, the report added.
Amazon also has plans to support more local Indian languages on its shopping app and mobile website and will also extend the service to mobile platforms beyond Android, said Kishore Thota, Amazon India’s head of customer experience and marketing, without giving a timeline, it said.
