Ranking in the top 10 as one of the largest economies in Europe, Swedish market can’t and shouldn’t be overlooked. With approximately 83% of adults 25-64 having completed upper secondary education, consumers are highly educated in Sweden. Moreover, there is a high usage of social media and mobile communication in this country, with nearly 9.67 million internet users in 2020.
Why You Should Consider Localizing For The Swedish Market
While Sweden is not necessarily the largest country, it still has a hungry market ready to spend money on products and services that matter to them. Here are some reasons why you should consider to localize your product for the Swedish audience:
- Innovative nation: Sweden is known as a startup nation. Popular games and services like Spotify, Minecraft, and Candy Crush all had originations from Sweden. In fact, Sweden comes in second only to Silicon Valley for the number of billion-dollar tech companies it produces per capita. But even so, you must adapt your global communication to their customs, rules, cultural, ideologic, economic, and legal rules. For this, you need a solid content localization strategy.
- Ease of doing business: According to a World Bank Group report, Sweden ranks number 10 out of 190 economies for ease of doing business. Their low corporate tax rates and streamlined processes make it easy for companies to form and operate.
- Swedes like to be online: With an internet penetration rate of 92.9% in 2017, the Swedes are among the world’s most connected nations. This gives marketers plenty of opportunities to reach these tech-savvy consumers, providing them with custom-tailored products and services.
- Progressive and open-minded: Swedish consumers are forward-thinking and open-minded. They are typically passionate about things they value. With this mentality, they are unafraid to spend on things they deem important – things like culture, leisure, sustainable & eco-friendly products, etc. Therefore, high-quality content localization is very important when you want to convince this demanding audience.
Considerations For Localizing Into Swedish
Here are some tips when localizing for the Swedish market:
- Keep it informal: In general, the Swedes have moved away from more formal expressions. For example, the informal tone of “du” (you) is used more widely than the formal “ni.” Swedes don’t like exaggeration and prefer more direct forms of communication. Therefore, when switching from internationalization applied to the production processes to communication adapted to the local audience, it’s important to work with an agency that provides you with high-quality content localization services.
- Formatting: Swedes utilize both the 24-hour and 12-hour clock. Typically, they’ll use the 12-hour clock informally and the 24-hour clock for official documents. The date format is generally YYYY-MM-DD.
- Loanwords: There is high English literacy in Sweden, as many are fluent in English and Swedish. The Swedish language is also quite close syntactically with English. Therefore, Swedes don’t have a problem accepting loanwords from English into Swedish. For example, “jobb” in Swedish comes from the English word “job.” Or, “turist” in Swedish comes from “tourist.”
- Localizing for Swedes: While many similarities with English, Swedes still prefer localized products, services, and content. Swedish consumers place a lot of value on issues like sustainability, transparency, and the environment. Moreover, being part of a collective is essential, as evidenced by the popularity of collaborative platforms like Airbnb and Uber.
SandVox: Your Localization Agency
SandVox is a leading localization agency that offers localization, translation, and marketing services to gaming companies worldwide.
Whether you want to expand on the Swedish market or another market across the globe, we’d love to be part of your next project. Contact us today for more information!