{ healthy stats } “The future of the internet is undeniably multilingual”

• The English language currently only accounts for 31% of all online use.
• Over half of all Google searches are in languages other than English.
• In fact, only 25% of the Earth’s population speak English – 94% of this number do so as a second language – and internet access in non-English speaking countries is increasing every year.
• Between 2000 and 2008, foreign languages have experienced massive growths in usage online – for example, Chinese use increased by 755%, Portuguese by 668% and Arabic by an astonishing 2064%. This is compared to a 204% online growth rate for English use.
• The Common Sense Advisory’s ‘Cant’ Read, Won’t Buy’ report found that 85% of all consumers require information in their native language before making a purchase.
• E-commerce is growing year upon year – Forrester Research Inc forecast a compound annual growth rate of 11% for Western Europe alone over the next five years, hitting €114 billion by 2014.
• The Localization Industry Standards Association’s 2007 report found that every US$1 spent on localisation yields a $25 return.
• And you want to be on top of the rankings in every language, because Chitika Research found that 35% of all web traffic goes to the top Google-ranked site, double the traffic of the second ranked site.

via The foreign language internet: the 21st century gold mine? | Econsultancy.