These findings are the outcome of a study on approximately 170,000 translation projects carried out by One Hour Translation for ecommerce companies in the US. The latest data from the Q1 of 2017, indicates that Arabic as a target language accounts for 12.9% of projects.
According to all data recorded from 2016, Arabic was the target language for 11.8% of projects. In 2015 Arabic did not even break the top 10 of the most in-demand languages.
When it comes to cross-border ecommerce, the most important languages targeted by the US online companies are Chinese, Spanish, German and French.
State of Payment in the Arab World report issued by Payfort, an online payment company, based on data from 2016, identified that on average 61% of the population in the seven Arab countries where the company operates engage in online shopping.
Payfort projected that the total volume of online transactions in these countries would reach USD 69 billion dollars a year by 2020, a threefold leap from the volume recorded in 2015.
Another report from Crimson Hexagon examining conversations conducted in Arabic and English over social media by online users from nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa over the years 2012-2016, learned that online shopping dominated 75% of the discussions.
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