Social media start-ups betting big on non-English speakers

Vokal, a Bengaluru-based vernacular social media platform, has rolled out its platform in 10 languages

Home-grown social media platforms are trying to cash in on the next wave of internet users, a vast majority of whom are expected to be non-English speakers.

Vokal, a Bengaluru-based regional language social media platform, has rolled out its platform in 10 languages.

The platform will be available in Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Oriya and Assamese. Talking to BusinessLine, Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-founder of Vokal, said that since its initial launch in English, the platform has seen two million active monthly users. Radhakrishna — who founded TaxiForSure, which was taken over by Ola — hopes that with this venture, he can achieve similar success. “The initial adoption has been positive and we expect to see 20-30 per cent monthly user growth,” he said.