Top Multilingual Website Stats and Localization Trends for 2024

Deciding whether to expand your business reach to a global audience is challenging, right? After all, going global requires website localization and multilingual capabilities, and that’s no small feat.

At first glance, making the transition may seem impossible—often feeling like navigating utterly uncharted territory.

But it only feels that way when you have no idea what you’re getting into. When you’re equipped with the right tools and knowledge, it’ll be much easier than you expected.

In this guide, we’ll dive into global foreign language stats, customer preference stats for multilingual websites, and business growth data from website localization.

Here’s a closer look at some of the multilingual website stats and localization trends, which include data captured from 70K+ users of the Weglot multilingual platform, and other stats from sites like WordPress, Shopify, HBR.org, Statista, and more.

Top Recent Foreign Language Stats

While most internet users speak English, it’s not the only highly popular consumer and business language.

Here is a quick look at the top stats that show the most spoken worldwide languages, the languages different websites and ecommerce platforms use, and popular language stats from Weglot.

• As of February 2024, English remains the most spoken language worldwide (1,452 million speakers), followed by Mandarin Chinese (1,118 million speakers), then Hindi (602+ million speakers). (Source)
• The most popular languages Weglot translates to are English (29.7%), Spanish (14.3%), French (11.3%), German (6.95%), and Arabic (5.47%).
• On the other hand, the most popular languages Weglot translates from are English (28.11%), French (5.49%), Spanish (4.53%), German (3.45%), and Dutch (1.57%).
• In 2022, Weglot translated over nine billion web pages.

• 74% of Weglot customers translated their website into one other language, 8.56% in two other languages, and 7.8% in more than two languages.
• Weglot translates an average of 4.8 billion words a year.
• English reaches only approximately 16% of the world (Source). Yet 52% of websites are written in English. (Source)

Key Takeaway: If your website exists in only one language, you’re missing out on sales opportunities from other audiences. Multilingual website services like Weglot make it possible to quickly translate your WordPress, Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and other types of websites into at least one additional language.

Customer Preference Stats (Why Website Localization is Vital)

Not only do stats show a wide audience for multilingual websites, but they also show that customers prefer websites in more than one language.

Here’s what customers have to say about website localization:

• 60% of shoppers rarely or never buy from English-only websites. (Source)
• Nearly 73% of customers prefer to purchase a product or service from a site that offers information in their own language. (Source)
• 65% of respondents prefer reading content in their language, even if it’s of poor quality (Source)

• 73% of customers prefer reading product reviews in their native language (Source)
• 9 out of 10 internet users said that, when possible, they always visited a website in their own language (Source)
• 40% of respondents said they wouldn’t buy products in another language. (Source)

Key Takeaway: If you’re looking to connect with consumers and boost your sales opportunities, then making your website a multilingual website is the way to go.

Results From Website Localization and Multilingual Website Services

The best news about investing in a multilingual website plugin is you don’t have to take anyone’s word for it. The results speak for themselves.

Here are some of the top results from online industry leaders and Weglot customers:

• REVIEWS.io enjoyed a 120% increase in traffic from German visitors and a 20% increase in conversions after using Weglot to translate their website. (Source)

• Respond.io added 15 languages to their website with Weglot. As a result, their website traffic and overall impressions increased 2x. (Source)
• The Bradery saved more than 100 hours translating over 500 products daily using multilingual website services from Weglot. (Source)
• Bigblue saw a 2x increase in blog traffic, and reduced their time spent translating their website by 2.5x. (Source)
• After Angell Mobility launched a multilingual storefront for the release of MINI’s first-ever e-bike, half their sales became international. (Source)

• According to a recent DeepL study, 75% agree that localized content significantly increases customer engagement.
• 96% of respondents observed a positive ROI from localizing efforts (Source)
• When asked about the biggest frustrations marketers experienced:
  • ~15% reported managing SEO for translated content
  • ~18% reported technical challenges in pushing content to website
  • ~22% reported working with tech staff (Source)
• 98% of the study’s respondents have used some kind of machine translation in their localization workflow (Source)

Key Takeaway: Making the transition from a one-language website to a multilingual one can seem daunting when you don’t have the facts. But companies that have made the transition experienced an increase in sales by at least 25%. Some websites have even seen a 70% increase in sales.

Wrap Up

The multilingual website stats and website localization trends for 2024 provide an abundantly clear message. Websites available in more than one language and provide localized content outperform single-language websites on every front.

Additionally, stats and case studies show that when companies start using the automated translation plugin by Weglot, their company sales and website traffic improve.

Curious about how it works? Try Weglot’s 10-day free trial to see just how easy setting up a multilingual website can be.

‍