Why your next 10,000 followers don’t speak English

Most creators write, film and caption in English and assume that’s where the audience is. The numbers say otherwise. English is the biggest single language online, but it’s a minority of the people scrolling.

The audience is mostly not English-speaking

• English speakers are about 25.9% of internet users. Chinese (19.4%), Spanish (7.9%) and Arabic (5.2%) follow, and languages outside the top 10 make up another 23.1% (Internet World Stats via Wikipedia, March 2020).
• Content hasn’t caught up. English is still 49.3% of the content on the top 10 million websites (W3Techs via Wikipedia, December 2025). Roughly half the content is written for a quarter of the people.
• That gap is the opportunity: in most languages, there is far less competition for each viewer’s attention.

People choose their own language when they can

• 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their native language (CSA Research, 8,709 consumers in 29 countries, 2020).
• 40% say they will never buy from websites in other languages, and 65% prefer content in their language even if the quality is poor (same survey).
• On Netflix, about one third of viewing in the first half of 2025 was of non-English titles (Netflix Engagement Report, via What’s on Netflix). Audiences are happy to watch content from anywhere, as long as they can follow it.

Dubbing already moves the numbers

• YouTube says creators who upload multi-language audio tracks saw over 25% of their watch time come from views in the video’s non-primary language, as of July 2025 (YouTube Official Blog).
• Jamie Oliver’s channel tripled its views after adding multi-language audio (TechCrunch, September 2025).
• In September 2025 YouTube opened the feature to millions of creators. The platforms are building for multilingual viewers; the question is whether your videos show up for them.

What this means for short-form creators

• Your best videos are already made. A reel that worked in English has a proven hook. Dubbing it is cheaper than inventing a new one.
• A voice beats a caption. Subtitles ask viewers to read while they scroll. A dub in their own language asks for nothing.
• Start with two or three languages that match your niche. Spanish, Arabic, Indonesian and Portuguese each had well over 100 million internet users in that same 2020 count.
• Keep your voice. Followers connect with a person. With VideoVoice, the dub is in your own cloned voice, so it still sounds like you.

See it in five languages

Your next 10,000 followers are probably already on the platform. They just haven’t heard you in their language yet.