What is Mobile App Localization? Why Should You Consider?

The number of mobile applications on app stores keeps increasing day by day which makes it more difficult for app owners to increase their app ranking and make them more visible. The most effective way to solve this problem is App Store Optimization. And mobile app localization is an important step of ASO. 

In this blog post, we’re going to be talking about this important step. What is mobile app localization? Why does it matter? How to find out if you need to localize your mobile application? Keep reading to find out.

What is Mobile App Localization?

As you can understand from its name, mobile app localization is the process of localizing and customizing a mobile application.

One of the optimizations that should be made while developing applications that will be served in various countries, is designing applications to work with different cultures and languages. This optimization is called localization.

Keep in mind that localization is not translation! This process is not only about your translation into another language. There are many differences between cultures, such as calendars, national festivals, currencies and etc. So, while localizing your app, you should also adapt it to the culture of the area in which you’re planning to serve your app.

Why Mobile App Localization Matters

Localizing your app will provide you with many advantages. Here are some of them:

Go Beyond Your User Base

As you may have heard many times before, the world is getting smaller with smartphones. For example, you don’t need to be in the USA to use Instagram, or you don’t need to be in China to use TikTok. All you need is a smartphone.

Many stats such as the one of Sensor Tower show us that the country with the most popular app downloads in the second quarter of 2019 is India. Do you know what is the most popular app used in India in 2019? It’s Facebook. High probably, it would be a different application if it wasn’t for localization.

According to Statista, in 2014, 48% of app users living in the United States stopped using an application because the app wasn’t localized enough.  

Yes, mobile app localization also matters for English-speaking countries because there are some differences between languages such as UK English and American English. 

Higher ROI

Localization also provides with higher ROI rates. According to Distomo, companies that localized their iOS apps experienced a significant increase (128%) in their downloads. So, by localizing your mobile app, you’ll help your app store optimization to increase your app ranking.

What To Localize?

There are many elements you can localize for your mobile app. Here are the main ones:

• texts
• pictures
• colours
• currency
• sounds
• date and number formats

How To Find Out If You Need Mobile App Localization?

Mobile app localization is a must for many applications. But before you start, first you need to decide if you really need to do it.

You can start by analyzing your app downloads. In which countries your app is actively used?

In addition to this, you can also localize your app according to the most popular countries such as India, Brazil, China and Russia. 

In this blog post, we talked about mobile app localization, which is a very important step of app store optimization, how it can help you to increase your app ranking and how to decide if your app needs localization. 
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