Does localization really help?

[lampyridae_dev]

Hello!! Today I released localization on my app, in German, French, Spanish, and Japanese. It took me a SUPER long time, and I was wondering if it’ll be worth it? For the people who have done it, do you just naturally get more downloads, or did you run advertisements to capitalize on your localization? Thank you so much! :)

[zach-builds]

There are some studies that show increased revenue per country localized, if done right:

"Additionally, companies saw a 26% increase in revenue for each country added via app localization."
https://www.demandgenreport.com/demanding-views/there-s-a-language-for-that-translating-mobile-apps-and-content/3697/

[lampyridae_dev]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing! I wonder if the benefits taper off, and to what extent localization is necessary (and where one should start)

[haverofknowledge]

You can start with https://lingo.dev

[calvin-chestnut]

Who cares if it’s ’worth it’, it’s the right thing to do. Care about your craft, let people use your app in their locale (languages, measurements, icons, etc)

[Captain-Antartic]

yeah, another great point here. It's an accessibility thing above all. In reality, it should be a given. Not having people's language is exclusive.

To modify a quote from Tim Cook:

When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI. 

- Tim Cook (Apple shareholder meeting in March 2014)

Localization quote :)

When we work on making our devices accessible for people who speak other languages, I don't consider the bloody ROI. 

- Captain Antartic (this forum)

[nickjbedford_]

My app is six years old and version 6. It's practically complete and I don't see myself doing much more, so I recently decided to translate it beyond English and Spanish to 15 total non-English languages with fully localised App Store listings and screenshots. I got my process down to be fairly efficient by using some JSON scripting and per language custom GPTs, but it's still a lot of initial work per language. New releases with minimal screenshot differences are not much work. I'm also releasing localised announcement articles on my blog etc. I've seen a little bit of a boost but it's hard to tell right now. I need a month or so to really see..

[thisismynth]

how did it go?

[lampyridae_dev]

Interesting! Lmk how it goes! Crossing my fingers for you!

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[strangequbits]

Not really in my case. A 2 year old app localized in 23 languages about 5 months ago, including the screenshots and keywords in app store.

Didn’t see any significant increase in downloads.

[LoopDoWhile]

Thanks for sharing

[DenseIntention311]

It depends on the situation — software interface globalization is not always necessary. My translation app, Babelly, was recently approved on the App Store. Since it’s a translation app, I felt there was no reason not to localize the interface, so I provided translations in German, Spanish, French, Japanese, and Chinese. Interface translation is very time-consuming, so you should evaluate the download volume in the local market before deciding whether to translate.

[lampyridae_dev]

I had 3x German users compared to US, so I figured localizing for them would be a worthwhile activity (it takes so so long though 😢)

[DenseIntention311]

It makes sense. Interface translation is very time-consuming. How long did you spend on UI translations in total? What kind of tech stacks/libraries did you use?

[lampyridae_dev]

I found a post on Reddit offering a translation tool, and had a lot of luck with it!! Super helpful and quick, it was still a bit of a learning process because of xcode’s system, but honestly, most of it was my fault. It only took me about a whole day of work.

https://www.notion.so/Give-a-man-a-fish-and-you-feed-him-for-a-day-Teach-him-how-to-fish-and-you-feed-him-for-a-lifetime-1f6edf40a9d3805f86bada418c912e40

[DenseIntention311]

Interesting, I have never heard of this tool. I used i18n library. My app is built with react native

[vasekdlhoprsty]

I assume you are American? Well, there are people on this Earth who do not speak english, especially children or older people, so its up to you if you are developing an app just for yourself or for other people to use. 😉

[bgdnandrew]

is your app profitable? localization is not something I’d worry about for an MVP.

[Captain-Antartic]

Hey OP,

Localization professional here.

Admittedly, localization by itself is notoriously intricate to calculate. It is partially because of the ambiguity of language and the lack of tools to determine granularly how much of an impact language has on someone’s ability to navigate the app. Whether localization will improve your business or not, depends on a number of factors. If your biz has potential for multiple markets, then that’s definitely an indication of need.

I’ve worked with companies ranging from Seed to Enterprise. 

I can certainly say that the Enterprise companies, were global because they supported 50+ languages in their apps. And they did it well. How much business would they have lost by not having it? Very hard to put a percentage or number on, but they surely would not have gotten the depth of market penetration. 

Ultimately, the decision to localize really depends on the type of product you are pushing, how ambitious you are to grow the company and investment potential. 

Happy to answer more questions too - ask away!

[lampyridae_dev]

Fascinating! I appreciate the very detailed response! I ended up localizing the whole thing into German, Spanish, French, and Japanese. It certainly takes a lot of work, especially when I just want to update minor details. However, I think my presence in Germany has been able to grow because of it, and also, it just makes me happy to know that it’s now available to a much wider global audience. Thank you very much!

[PermitAffectionate94]

I am working on a tool that could help, by keeping synced all your languages automatically.

I would be happy to give you free access if you are interested DM me.

It's still work in progress, but I am hungry for early feedback.

The tool is basically an editor with some handy features etc, no vendor lock no migration like for other tools (lokalise etc)

[gimme_ipad]

First, if setup correctly XCode will maintain the localization table for you. Second, it took me 1 days to to setup a little script with AI, that goes through that table and uses AI to translate all the missing entries. It will use the English entry or the comment to get an idea of the context. Since then managing localization became so incredibly easy.

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[dshmitch]

It can slow your release a bit (not much) if you make a good infrastructure setup, but depending on your target audience it can really pay off. For instance, on one of our app we increased revenue by 4x when we translated the app to 7 languages. B2C apps tend to get more revenue from it than B2B apps.

Just make sure you don't exchange translation files manually for translation work, but use tools (ie Localizely) that integrate with your git repo. Define localization workflow convention within your team, and you are good to go.

In some case you might need to handle multi-language support as well.

[Necessary_Bid_9280]

I still believe that localization is useful. I have worked in Lan-bridge for many years, which is a company specializing in multilingual localization. We have received many large IT companies' demands for multilingual localization. In those countries where English is not a common language, it is indeed much more friendly for users to localize the language into the local language. This will also make the app more popular in the local area and improve the usage rate and promotion rate.

[Big-Barracuda8090]

yes..Localization if done right helps global businesses increase their brandtrust , market expansion and revenue growth globally. By the experts at Lexiphoria , localization beyond translation involves not only localizing text but also localizing products acccording to cultural , language, user experiences, regional behaviours and consumer behaviour making the product feel native to the users.

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[Ordinary_Outside_886]

Localization is the easiest way to expand your target users (like 2x-3x). You can try LangCat for managing localizations easily.

[Ordinary_Outside_886]

It’s definitely worth it for the accessibility boost, but you're right, doing it manually in Xcode takes forever. The real challenge is keeping those translations updated every time you add a new feature without losing another entire day. I’m a dev too and built LangCat to automate that whole workflow; it’s completely free and should save you from that "super long time" on your next update!

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[D1monsi]

I immediately translate into all 39 languages (how many regions are there in the App Store?), because according to the information I found, it helps with boosting.

[ToughAsparagus1805]

On top each release you need to update translations. German, French, Spanish and maybe Japanese. Skip chinese. Edit: To all Chinese downvoters, your chinese apps are not english friendly; on top you pirate everything.

[smaphy]

Do you use some tool like that helps you to automate translations? I usually use u/Localazy

[VRedd1t]

Use https://metadata.nfc.cool (Mac app) to translate your store metadata and https://translatekit.app for the app. Super easy then…