LinkedIn adds Hindi language to reach half a billion Indian users

The news: LinkedIn is rolling out support for Hindi, a language spoken or understood by more than 600 million people globally, per Insider.

How we got here: LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with 800 million members in 200 countries. The company has been unable to saturate India—the world’s second-largest internet market—because less than 20% of its population of 1.3 billion people speaks English.

• Hindi is the first Indian regional language to be supported by the social network. 
• LinkedIn’s mobile apps and website will enable users to access their feeds, profiles, and messages in Hindi. 
• LinkedIn said it currently has over 82 million users in India. The country accounts for just 6% of over 1.3 billion monthly visits. 
• LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft, shut down its operations in China in October due to the “challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements.” China was LinkedIn’s third-largest market, with 54 million users, but made up less than 2% of Microsoft’s revenues, according to Microsoft President Brad Smith.

The opportunity: By adding the Hindi language in its apps and website, LinkedIn can quickly amplify its presence in India and gain access to over half a billion global users, offsetting its losses in China.

• Other companies are following suit. Apna, a startup job site in India, conducted a survey that revealed 57% of users in India prefer using their native language over English. 
• There are various job websites in India, but none that integrate the social networking aspect to the degree that LinkedIn does.