Businesses in telecommunications, financial services, utilities and insurance that offer customer service in the native language of the consumer will be the biggest winners as the stalled economy begins to move in 2011, according to a new joint report from AT&T* and Language Line Services, the leading provider of language-based solutions.
The report, which cites the example of Hewlett Packard with a reported 85 percent sales increase from a targeted multicultural campaign, points to the significant buying power of the nation’s limited English speaking population. U.S. Hispanic purchasing power will reach $1.3 trillion by the year 2014, the report forecasts (Selig Center for Economic Growth, University of Georgia). The combined buying power of the Hispanic, Black, Asian and Native American communities is already more than $1.5 trillion. One in every six Americans (46.9 million) in the country is Hispanic.
“Organizations have a competitive opportunity to reach the 9 percent of the U.S. population that has trouble with the English language (U.S. Census 2000). That’s more than 27.6 million people who could be potential customers. Yet, 40 percent of companies say they don’t understand the financial value of multicultural groups to their bottom lines,” said Louis Provenzano, President and COO of Language Line Services.
“This isn’t business as usual. It’s a buyer’s market, and many buyers speak one of 170 different languages and dialects in the U.S. By providing integrated in-language services throughout the sales, fulfillment and customer service process, organizations help attract and retain customers and enjoy a significant competitive advantage. Multiple studies verify that goods or services have greater probability of selling and fostering loyalty if they are promoted and supported in the customer’s language,” Provenzano said.
The number of immigrants more comfortable speaking their native language when buying has grown by 25 million U.S. residents in the past 35 years, and every 19 seconds, another immigrant enters the country with limited ability to speak English, according to the report.
According to the report, these numbers simply cannot be ignored. And yet many businesses are doing just that. This multicultural population that presents such great buying potential is the same population that is so vastly underserved.
Other findings from the AT&T/Language Line Services report on language include:
- The U.S. immigrant population is expected to double from 25 million to 50 million between 2000 and 2050. At this rate today’s minority population will become the majority by 2050.
- 60 percent of Asian Americans — which includes Chinese, Indian, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Japanese Americans — now earn an annual income of $60,000 or higher, and 44 percent over the age of 25 have college degrees. The projected 2014 buying power of Asian Americans is $697 billion.
- Asian buying power also has the second-fastest projected rate of growth, slightly behind that of Hispanic purchasing clout.
- Hispanics became the largest ethnic group in the U.S. six years earlier than initially projected. In 2009 the total Hispanic spending power reached $978 billion.
- Multicultural marketing now enables organizations to reach the 23 percent of Hispanic households and 30 percent of Asian households across the nation that were previously considered “linguistically isolated.”
To view the full AT&T/Language Line Joint Report, visit http://www.languageline.com/wpmulticultural
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