The popular photo and video-sharing social networking service, Instagram, is said to be working on Hindi version of its app, as reported by The Next Web. The service, owned by the social media giant, Facebook Inc., plans to integrate Hindi onto its platform tightly and features like comments, and the settings menu could be viewed in the language.
Though the company has not commented on this, a tipster named Jane Manchun Won has posted some screenshots of the app’s ‘beta’ version with support for Hindi. Instagram’s IGTV is also expected to allow for streaming of Hindi videos.
Outside of the US, India is also Instagram’s biggest market with 71 million users. However, with the Hindi version, the company could have access to around 43.63% of India’s population, approximately 100 million speakers. Also, with Indians consuming around 4GB data per month, this represents a lucrative opportunity for the company. Even Amazon India has launched Hindi versions of its shopping website and app.
However, the benefits of a Hindi version might only be limited since Instagram relies mostly on visual media like photos and videos. Text usually has a subordinate role and thus, even though the use of Hindi might help retain existing users on the platform, it might not be enough on its own to attract the Hindi speakers.
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