Is There Too Much English on the Internet? [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Internet is gaining users each day — mostly in non-English speaking regions.

That’s because the web’s reach is spreading fast. While it took 30 years to get two billion people online, the Internet is now adding one billion new users every four years.

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Smartling, an enterprise translation management company, created this multilingual, interactive HTML5 infographic to show who is using the Internet today around the world. Smartling believes that to create a global web, the platform must speak more languages and businesses much adjust their practices to reach new audiences in non-English speaking markets.

90% of today’s web users live in non-English speaking countries. Only 13% of the world’s web users live in North America. In comparison, Asia is home to 45% of web users, Europe is home to 23%, South America is home to 10%, Africa is home to 6% and the Middle East is home to 3.3%.

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The infographic highlights market share growth, ecommerce and mobile trends in South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The amount of Arabic on the Internet — 3% of all sites in 2011 — has increased by 2500% since 2000. Similarly, Russian’s current 3% share is up 1800% in the last decade. China added more Internet users in three years than people in the U.S. And China, India, Iran, Nigeria and Russia have added the most new Internet users in the last five years.

You can view the infographic in nine different languages — Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portugese and Spanish — on Smartling’s website.

What do you make of these statistics? Do you think the rise of non-English speakers presents a challenge or an opportunity? Let us know in the comments.

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This story originally published on Mashable here.

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