ARCHIVE - THIS SITE IS OUT OF DATE - FOR REF ONLY ON-LINE POPULATION BY LANGUAGE WORLD-WIDE Source: Global Reach
Although statistically English only represents 20% of the world's population and 70% of the world's books are in languages other than English, there has been myth that because English is the international business language, it is and will be the language of the Internet. Consequently "most web-sites are in English", and it is "not necessary to have sites in other languages". Although there may have been some truth in the notion that most international sites were acceptable in English only in the early days of the Internet, it is increasingly clear that this assumption is not only incorrect, but also misleading. In fact the trend is going in the other direction. While about 60% of web-sites were in English before the end of the last millennium, it is obvious from the latest figures in 2003 that the share of English has shrunk to 35%, or to put it more precisely, the number of non-English sites has increased dramatically. This trends needs careful consideration for companies eager to trade internationally. After all, in the end, it does not matter what the English web-site designer says, it is the customers who will decide which language they want to read their product or service information in.
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