The Market for Mobile App Localization Heats Up

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Global Watchtower

Common Sense Advisory Blogs

Posted by Vijayalaxmi Hegde on November 20, 2012 in the following blogs: Technology
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Among the obstacles that mobile app localization faces, platform compatibility can be daunting. That challenge includes not only differing operating systems (Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows), variants of those operating systems (a few flavors of Android, annual rejiggerings of iOS, and a major transition for both Blackberry and Windows) but also different handsets, screen sizes (iOS 6 required an update to support an additional square millimeter of display real estate), and app contexts (localizing game apps is not the same as localizing banking apps).

Like their predecessors dealing with multiple server operating systems or mitigating the differences among Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu, many mobile app makers have surely wished for a magic wand that they could just wave to localize their software. While magic wands are in short supply, the mobile app localization market did heat up a notch with the recent launch of Linguify.Mobile by LinguaNext.

In a briefing with Common Sense Advisory, Atul Tulshibagwale, CEO, and Chris Lanfear, Director of Marketing, talked of some features of Linguify.Mobile that caught our attention:

No disruption. Linguify.Mobile allows for translation of app content without any changes to the underlying code. The software sits on the app’s code like a wrapper, captures the output to the screen, and replaces it with the translated content and then pushes it to the destination (that is, the screen). The content itself is translated manually.
Scalable. As there is no change to the source code, languages can be added much faster than if developers would be required to make alterations for every new language that they add.

Linguify.Mobile may help LinguaNext become a potential leader in mobile app localization as far as text-heavy apps are concerned. However, localization means more than just translation. Localizing a game app could prove trickier as even images may need to be changed to deal with cultural issues.

Availability of an app – whether free or paid – in multiple languages positively affects the number of downloads and revenue. Providers such as Icanlocalize and Moravia are marketing their mobile app localization service – as distinct from other translation services they provide – and yet other companies like Tethras are jumping into the fray with only this service as their exclusive offering.

Apps are sprouting by the day and, unless they have some very niche content, it will be a struggle to catch the smartphone user’s attention in a bustling app store, as many a developer is finding out. If the app is but an extension of a prominent corporate or social media website, it may already have some language options, but not always. However, many businesses rely solely on the app store for distribution. Such companies could be new to localization and need language service providers (LSPs) and technology vendors to help them enter new markets. LSPs and technology vendors need to figure out how to tweak their production models to best suit mobile app localization and take leadership in a market that’s fast heating up.

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