Apple recently released a blog post to announced that they had launched 11 new languages in the App Store. This is a welcome announcement from Apple given that the last language addition was in 2019 when Apple added Arabic and Hebrew with iOS 13. On a surface level, this is a great news in app store optimization. Upon closer inspection, the announcement is quite unusual, especially coming from Apple. Is India a 2026 power play? Or did some regulations just force Apple to go all in?
Brief history of language launches by Apple
Over the past decade the localization available in Apple’s App Store have slowly increased. To date, they are still nowhere near Google Play Store’s daunting list yet their new addition puts them into a peculiar competition.
2018
The year 2018 was a big jump for the App Store. Apple added 9 languages Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Hindi, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, and Ukrainian. These languages gave iOS users in pockets of Europe a more localized experience for the first time. The curious hidden language in the bunch was of course, Hindi.
Hindi marked a new era for Apple, acknowledging that India was not only an Android market. It further offered insights into Indian user behaviors. In 2015, they had an interesting marketing campaign video for the iPhone 6 (in English). Perhaps that kicked off some traction, which ultimately led to Hindi.
2019
The year 2019 marked the last known language launch by the App Store for years to come. If us as ASO professionals would have known at that time, then perhaps we would have celebrated more. That launch, was exclusively focused on Arabic and Hebrew.
2019-2025
2019-2025 marked a dry spell for Apple. To the point, myself and likely others began to wonder if someone was even owning that product at all. I would often speculate that App Store localizations lived in a forgotten chamber of Apple. Alas, bring on 2026.
2026
By early Q2, 2026 is shaping up to be a crazy year. Why shouldn’t Apple add some localization offerings to the mix? Let’s give everyone some more screenshots to customize, keywords to research and analytics to monitor. Thanks!
What’s odd about this announcement from Apple though is not that they added languages to the App Store, but rather which languages they chose. I’ve been speculating for years in regards to which languages Apple should add to the App Store. They should also update the mapping to reflect more real world usage. However, we are left with this oddity in Apple’s announcement and looming questions.
In their announcement, Apple shared that they will now support 11 new languages. These languages include Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Slovenian, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. See anything odd here?
There’s a lot to unpack here. But let us start with the odd one in the bunch: Slovenian.
Why Slovenian?
I love Ljublana. Slovenia is a beautiful country, but why Slovenian and not other European languages?
By population Slovenia is one of the smallest countries in the European Union. There are several other countries in Europe, not in the European Union, but European that are larger. For example, Bulgaria and Serbia are roughly 3 times the size of Slovenia and have strong internet usage in their language.
We can make some guesses:
- Is this an appeal to Melania Trump? The current First Lady of the United States whose native language is Slovenian?
- Is Apple planning to open a store in Ljublana to service the greater Balkans?
- Perhaps, it just aligns with the next inline country. Slovenian was one of the few EU languages not supported?
- That being said, perhaps new legislation requires Apple to be available in Slovenian.
Ultimately, we are unsure. We do think Apple should add other European languages such as Bulgarian, Serbian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Albanian, Macedonian, Estonian and Irish. However, we also won’t hold our breath.
India: are we missing something?
Apple’s addition of 10 languages native to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka is a curious advancement.
On a surface level, yes these countries make up a significant percentage of the world’s population. On a secondary level, the average expendable income amongst this demographic is incredibly low. India is rapidly changing and will continue to, but unless Apple releases a budget phone, they are unlikely to compete with Jio or Chinese OEMs anytime soon.
Apple did launch a second store in Mumbai in February though so perhaps they are looking to the massive population of India to continue to meet shareholder demands. Additionally, Apple has been steadily shifting their supply chain from China to India, though it seems like they are still heavily dependent on Chinese production capabilities.
Other possible explanations, could include regulation, even soft regulation as a means of good-faith. For example, the Digital India group which is part of the Government of India has a program called Bhashini which has a stated mission of “Its establishment underscores the nation’s commitment to ensuring that technology bridges linguistic divides and becomes a powerful tool for inclusivity.” Bhashini is an AI focused initiative “Harnessing technology to transcend language barriers“. It does not seem like Apple had any exclusive partnership, but there could be something here.
No love for English (India)
We feel that Apple is doing a huge disservice to India by not having an English variant to cater specifically to the country. 95%+ of users in India will be accessing their mobile devices in English. The locale of choice is more than likely English (India). Google recognized that and launched their own version of English (India) to cater to that. Unfortunately, given Apple’s current mapping, those users will always only be able to see English (UK), which makes little to no sense. Apple’s localization mapping needs a real overhaul from someone who gets it.
Targeting
There is a looming question in my head: will we be able to target these users effectively?
The short answer, yes and no.
| Country or region | Default language | Additional supported language(s) |
| Bangladesh | English (U.K.) | |
| India | English (U.K.) | Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu |
| Pakistan | English (U.K.) | Urdu |
| Sri Lanka | English (U.K.) |
This mapping leads me to believe that something is going on specific to India. Why? Well look at it. Bangla is the national language of Bangladesh. A language that they literally fought and died for. In fact, each year on February 21st we have the UNESCO International Mother Language Day to commemorate the 1952 Language Movement in Bangladesh. However, Apple convenient did not add Bangla to Bangladesh, just India. While Bangla is spoken by 100 million in India, it is spoken by 165 million in Bangladesh. Sadly, Bangladesh isn’t even counted on Apple’s mapping list.
Also, Tamil accounts for roughly 20% of Sri Lankans, which is a similar percentage to regional languages Catalan and French (Canada). Why not add Sinhala and then map both to Sri Lanka.
Pakistan adds the ability to target Urdu speakers but not Punjabi. Yet Punjabi (or Panjabi) accounts for nearly 40% of Pakistanis.
Ultimately, the inadequate mapping of these languages in the App Store is not surprising. It tracks nicely with Apple’s past movements. Only recently, did Apple make Arabic a language mapping for countries like Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. To date, nearly all of the former Soviet Republics like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan still are English only despite widespread Russian language usage remaining as a legacy in those countries.
App Store Optimization
In another blog, we’ll talk all about localizing your ASO for India. But at a high level, it’s likely that this new language roll out will create some buzz among agencies pushing services. Keyword targeting in India just went up by over 1,000 characters. In some ways this is extremely exciting. In other ways, will this just lead to crazy keyword stuffing strategies? I can see the click bait now ‘How to hack ASO in India to get a million downloads’.
In reality, I’m not convinced that this will actually have significant immediate impact. In reality, how many end users are actually using iPhones in the Odia language? Or Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu for that matter. Likely there are very few as of today.
Final Thoughts
The truth is local language usage in India remains low. Despite massive efforts to get Indians to like localization, most Indian users still default to English, even when they barely speak it.
It’s likely that Apple had pressure to expand on their languages or is considering new strategic angles to keep their profits increasing. Who wouldn’t want to consider 1.5 Billion people. Personally, I hope Apple solves its ethical minerals sourcing issues before dishing out 200 million new iPhones in India.
Ultimately, Apple is one of the most profitable and recognized brands in modern history. They can and should continue to add languages to the App Store. However, it would be great if they could focus on adding all national languages. I think that’s about the best we can expect from tech in 2026. Let’s give them a chance.