Europe
To which language should you translate to localize in Sweden?
What we know from our community
Sweden speaks one language: Swedish. Even though there are only 10,3 million speakers, there are hundreds of local dialects divided into six major dialects: Norrland, Finland Swedish, Gotland, Götamal, Svealand and Southern Sweden. The differences are quite vast and are in some cases linked to geographic circumstances, with the Southern Swedish being heavily influenced by Danish, with softening consonants, while the dialect in Norrland is believed to stem from the Medieval times. It’s near impossible even for Swedes to comprehend all six major dialects.
There is high English literacy in Sweden, as English is the official second language. Swedes, therefore, have no problems accepting English loanwords but still prefer localised products and content.
The Swedish language has moved towards more casual expressions. The formal “ni” (you) has been replaced with the informal “du”. Swedes are also allergic to superlatives and other forms of exaggeration and prefer more direct and factual communication.
Introduction
Language
Official language
Swedish
T-index
0.54%
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.
Other languages
Indigenous: Westrobothnian, Elfdalian, Modern Gutnish, Jamtlandic, Scanian
Regional: Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Sami, Yiddish
Immigrant: Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Kurdish, Persian, Polish, Spanish, Somali
Foreign: English (39%) Spanish (13%), German (8%), Italian (5%), Portuguese (3%)
Most studied languages
English 86%, German 30%, French 11%
English
High proficiency (EF) – 8 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 7/35 position in Europe.
Demography
Capital: Stockholm
Currency: Swedish krona
Population: 10,42 m
Population density: 26 /km2
Economy
GDP: 627.44 billion USD (2021)
GDP per capita: 60,239.0USD (2021)
Exports: $152 billion (2020)
Statistics
Internet users: 97% penetration, 9.88 million
Unemployment rate: 8.7% (2021)
Urbanisation: 87.43% (2018)
Literacy: 99% (2018)
Conventions
Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator
Date format: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 0046
Language data sources: Worldatlas/Britannica//EF/Wikipedia; Demography data sources: IMF/Worldometers; Conventions data source: Wikipedia; Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal; Statistics data sources: Datareportal/WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF/Culturalatlas/Commisceoglobal
Facts and data
Economy
Imports
$140 billion (2020). Cars ($8.46B), Crude Petroleum ($5.25B), Vehicle Parts ($4.86B), Refined Petroleum ($4.38B), and Broadcasting Equipment ($4.05B), importing mostly from Germany ($25.2B), Netherlands ($11.6B), Denmark ($9.45B), Norway ($9.1B), and China ($9.02B).
Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of age)
• 100% have an account with a financial institution
• 45% have a credit card
• 84% make online purchases
Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 82 out of 100) ranked 7th out of 44 OECD high income countries ranked 10th out of 190 countries worldwide (2019, World Bank).
Global Innovation Index
Ranked 2nd out of 39 European countries, 2nd out of 132 worldwide.
The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.
Exports
$152 billion (2020). Cars ($11.1B), Packaged Medicaments ($9.29B), Refined Petroleum ($5.25B), Vehicle Parts ($4.13B), and Broadcasting Equipment ($3.76B), exporting mostly to Germany ($15.9B), Norway ($14.2B), United States ($12.7B), Denmark ($11.6B), and Finland ($9.44B).
Main local online stores
Ikea.com, Netonnet.se, Elgiganten.se, Webbhallen.com, Zalando.se, Hm.com, Mediamarkt.se, Coop.se, Apotea.se, Sas.se
Main foreign online stores
Amazon.com, Aliexpress.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Norwegian.com, Asos.com, Etsy.com, Lightinthebox.com, Allegro.pl
Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (rated 77.9 out of 100) ranked 8th out of 45 European countries ranked 11th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).
Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal
Service Exports (2018)
Source: OEC
Service Imports (2018)
Source: OEC
Most specialised products by RCA Index
Specialisation is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage, an index that takes the ratio between Sweden observed and expected exports in each product
Source: OEC
Most complex products by PCI Index
Product Complexity Index measures the knowledge intensity of a product by considering the knowledge intensity of its exporters
Source: OEC
Export Opportunities by Relatedness
Relatedness measures the distance between a country's current exports and each product, the barchart show only products that Sweden is not specialized in
Source: OEC
T-index
Reach most of the online purchasing power
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales. It estimates the market share of each country in relation to global e-commerce.
Try it nowMedia
Media language
Swedish, English
Information channels
Sweden is a major force in Scandinavian media and is home to regional media giants Bonnier and Modern Times Group (MTG). TV remains the most popular medium, with radio and online media at its heels. Public Sveriges Television’s (SVT) main competitor is privately-owned TV4. Most households have multichannel TV. Public Sveriges Radio runs national and regional networks. Some privately-owned radio networks have national coverage. The government subsidies newspapers regardless of their political stance. Papers tend not to have formal links to a political party. Instead, they are described in terms such as “independent liberal” or “independent conservative”. Swedes have traditionally been avid newspaper readers, but the press is under pressure from digital rivals. Sweden rates highly for media freedom. It occupied number three position in the Reporters Without Borders 2019 World Press Freedom Index, behind Norway and Finland.
The press
Aftonbladet – Stockholm-based daily
Dagens Nyheter – Stockholm-based daily
Expressen – Stockholm-based daily
Svenska Dagbladet – Stockholm-based daily
Goteborgs Posten – Gothenburg-based daily
Sydsvenskan – Malmo-based daily
The Local – English-language online news
Television
Sveriges Television (SVT) – public
TV4 – commercial
TV3 – commercial
Kanal 5 – commercial
Radio
Sveriges Radio – public
Rix FM – commercial, music
NRJ – commercial, music
Mix Megapol – commercial, music
News agency
TT – owned by several media groups
Media data source: BBC
Internet Data
Internet users
97% penetration, 9.88 million
Share of web traffic by device
45.90% mobile phones, 51.22% computers (laptops and desktops), 2.86% tablet devices, others 0.02%
Median speed of mobile Internet connection
59.61 Mbps
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
98.69 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 141%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 97.8%
Most popular web search engines
Google (95.63), Bing (2.65%),Yahoo (0.95%), Duckduckgo (0.49%), Ecosia (0.14%) Yandex Ru (0.06%)
Most used social media
Facebook (79.17%), Twitter (7.55%), Instagram (6.32%), Pinterest (4.67%), YouTube (1.43%), Tumblr (0.4%)
Internet Data
Internet users
97% penetration, 9.88 million
Share of web traffic by device
45.90% mobile phones, 51.22% computers (laptops and desktops), 2.86% tablet devices, others 0.02%
Median speed of mobile Internet connection
59.61 Mbps
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
98.69 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 141%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 97.8%
Most popular web search engines
Google (95.63), Bing (2.65%),Yahoo (0.95%), Duckduckgo (0.49%), Ecosia (0.14%) Yandex Ru (0.06%)
Most used social media
Facebook (79.17%), Twitter (7.55%), Instagram (6.32%), Pinterest (4.67%), YouTube (1.43%), Tumblr (0.4%)
Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter
Social statistics
Life expectancy
82.31 yrs (2017)
Average age of the population
42.8 yrs (2020)
Healthcare expenditure
11.9% of GDP (2014)
Glass Ceiling Index
84 out 100, ranked 1st out of 29 countries
The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.
Graduates
Between 2008 and 2018, the proportion of younger Swedish adults (25-34 year-olds) with a tertiary education grew from 41% to 48% compared to 35% and 44% on average across OECD countries. Although this increase in tertiary attainment rates is similar to other Nordic countries, it is much lower compared to some other OECD countries, which may be due to relatively high historical attainment levels. First-time entrants into tertiary education tend to go for longer studies: 27% enrolled at master’s level compared to 7% on average across OECD countries (2019)
Social statistics sources: WorldBank/UN/UNESCO/CEIC/IMF
The Data Factbook is a work in progress project. Our community is helping us to fill it up always with new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write your advices at imminent@translated.com
Languages research
Languages and dialects spoken in Sweden
Legend
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Swedish
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Davvi Saami
-
Finnish
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Kirunamal
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Kalixmal
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Lule Saami
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Pite Saami
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Ume Saami
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Norwegian
-
Southern Saami
-
Jamtlandic
-
Elfdalian
-
Gutnish
-
Scanian
-
Tornedalian Finish
The language research that you will find in the maps published in this section is a work in progress. Our community is helping us to fill it up with always new and updated data. Your contribution is precious. If you want to help us, please write to imminent.factbook@translated.com
Photo credit: Robert Bye, Unsplash