Localizing your mobile app is essential to compete in international markets. Android and iOS apps must complete this phase, which is equally crucial. Mobile gadgets are necessary for highly developed and still developing industrial nations. Mobile phones and internet connections are rapidly replacing traditional landlines around the world.
Everywhere on the planet, people utilize apps. Mobile devices—and the applications they enable—are becoming increasingly crucial for both business and leisure. The potential market available to you is essentially limitless, for starters. If you create an app that is well-liked in your own country, other markets will also be interested. It would be best if you had the proper mobile app localization to promote your program to those new areas.
The best place to start if you’re unfamiliar with the subject is to understand that testing and prototyping are equally essential components of product development, as is localization. Therefore, additional settings will be needed at the beginning of translation to enable continuous workflow later.
App localization entails conforming the translation to regional norms, which may include converting measurements, currencies, and other terms, as well as formatting, color schemes, and cultural references.
To draw attention to the language and design of the application itself, it also incorporates several other elements crucial for enhancing the experience of foreign users, such as culture and aesthetics.
What are the advantages of good localization work?
- Worldwide Reach: Do you still believe that the United States is the world’s leading software market? Not anymore! Asia is home to most of the world’s mobile app users. Regardless of your mother tongue, you miss out on significant marketplaces if you limit your app launch to a single language.
- Virtually Unlimited Sales Potential: There will be close to five billion active mobile customers worldwide by next year. If your mobile app is localized to reach even a tiny portion of that number, imagine how many sales you may generate!
- Better ROI: For your mobile apps to be profitable, users must download them. On this front, localized apps operate noticeably better. According to research, localized apps (in this case, on the iOS operating system) were downloaded 128 percent more frequently.
How to get an app localized?
Let’s concentrate on what you should know and do before starting to localize your software.
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Select your market and language options.
You might believe that “the more, the merrier.” However, initially, quality rather than quantity should be your top emphasis. Let’s assume you are new to app localization. In that scenario, we advise starting with a few languages. For instance, the languages that most of your existing users speak and some of the most widely used online, such as English, Spanish, Chinese, and others. You might use this as your starting point. Add new languages, even dialects, as your localization project advances.
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Choose a language service provider and a translation plan.
It’s crucial to choose appropriate localization platforms, methodologies, and services and a translation strategy. You can select a seasoned vendor well-versed in the target language and culture, set up machine translation, work with freelance translators you locate online, and more. A localization project for an app can benefit from hiring an app localization company because they frequently work with native translators with the best insights into their culture. You urgently require a competent translation.
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Ensure your localization platform is secure.
Professional app localization services aim to create a platform that will expand your product’s market while guaranteeing your data’s security. A crucial element of continuous localization is security.
Mobile Apps Localization Success Example
Pokémon Go will provide you with all the knowledge you need to succeed with localizing smartphone apps. The app was released in the middle of July 2016 for Android and iOS, and within the first week of being made available, it received over seven million downloads. Since Nintendo and Pokémon are significant companies with booming consumer bases, they undoubtedly have an advantage over your business. Despite their size and expertise in worldwide marketing, the Pokémon Go developers still had to pick up a few localization tips and methods before the program was made available to the public.
The United States, New Zealand, and Australia were the first nations to have access to Pokémon Go. Other nation launches were planned for a later date, a clever strategy designed to heighten interest in the regions that weren’t given access to the game right once. The unintended result was that users without authorized access to the app were willing to do almost anything to obtain it. In the nations where Pokémon Go wasn’t available, illegal downloads and knockoff apps were rife.
Final thought
As was already noted, the App Market is expanding significantly year over year, and localizing your app is one approach to capitalize on this worldwide market.
To prevent the hazards of a poor translation, localization experts must carry out a lengthy and challenging procedure that considers various factors, including cultural variations, regional laws, technological requirements, and the most important linguistic features of the target language.
When pursuing international markets, mobile app localization is a process that requires careful consideration. Making your next mobile app available in particular locations is only one aspect of localizing it; even translating the program’s text won’t suffice. It would be best if you considered the complexities of other cultures to harness the global economy’s potential fully. Assessing the elements that contributed to your app’s success in its home country and ensuring that users in other countries can enjoy the same user experience will require actual knowledge. Once your program has been expertly localized, you can release it with the understanding that it will be loved in other nations just as much as it is on your own.
