Popular social audio chat app Clubhouse on Wednesday added support for five Indian languages on Android including Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu, in a bid to take on its growing rivals in the space. The additonal launguages added are currently for Android and a roll out for iOS devices is expected soon and it is being seen as a big step towards the Andreessen Horowitz-backed company's localisation efforts.
The app also added support for languages like French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Spanish while announcing its new app icon that features musician, singer and songwriter Anirudh Deshmukh.
Starting today, the app will show in-app prompts, descriptions, topics, notifications and community guidelines in these 5 regional Indian languages on Android devices.
"We’re very happy to say that today, all of that is changing, as we are rolling out our first wave of local language support. We’re starting on Android with thirteen new languages launching immediately -- including French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Malayalam, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Tamil, and Telugu," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
"We’ll be adding support for iOS and additional languages soon, so that people from Mumbai and Paris to Sao Pãulo and Jakarta can experience Clubhouse in a way that feels a bit more native to them," the company added.
Highlighting why Anirudh was chosen as the face of Clubhouse, the company said Anirudh is one of its favorite creators in India.
"He’s part of an incredible corner of Clubhouse where hundreds of different languages are spoken. And just like his predecessor Mandiie Martinez, founder of the Chingona AF club, Anirudh is a multi-hyphenate human of many talents. He’s an architect turned singer, songwriter, composer, and more. Based in Mumbai, Anirudh joined Clubhouse at the start of the year and by the spring, had launched his now 72K member club, Anirudh, where he hosts his nightly show ‘Late Night Jam’," Clubhouse noted.
Content in local languages is taking off like never before, thanks to deeper internet and smartphone penetration. Of late, social media behemoths like Google, Facebook and Twitter have also localised their products, in an attempt to widen their base in India.