Europe
To which language should you translate to localize in Switzerland?
Then, first of all, take a look at what the 150 top websites do
Of the top 100 website (Global by design ranking):
- 95/100 translate into German
- 90/100 translate into French
- 41/100 translate into Italian
- 56/100 translate into English
- 9/100 translate into French (without Deutsch option)
- 14/translate into Deutsch (without French option)
- 81/100 translate into both French and Deutsch
Now, if you need others information about that country to make your decision, below you can find a selection of economic/social/cultural data
Introduction
Language
Official language
German 62.6%, French 22.9%, Italian 8.2%, Romansh 0.05%
T-index. 0.86%
T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.
English
High proficiency (EF) – 25 out of 112 countries/regions in the world- 21/35 position in Europe.
Demography
Capital: Switzerland is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authority centered in Bern.
Currency: Swiss franc
Population: 8.70 m
Population density: 220/km2
Economy
GDP: 704.83 billion USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 93,457.4 USD (2020)
Exports: $305 billion (2020)
Statistics
Internet users: 98% penetration, 8.57 million
Unemployment rate: 4.4% (2020)
Urbanisation: 73.8% (2020)
Literacy: 99% (2020)
Conventions
Numbering system
Arabic numerals with comma as decimal separator
Date format: dd – mm – yyyy
Time: yyyy-mm-dd / dd-mm-yyyy
Country code: 0041
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
$302 billion (2020). Gold ($87.4B), Packaged Medicaments ($26.6B), Blood, antisera, vaccines, toxins and cultures ($11.8B), Cars ($9.65B), and Jewellery ($7.83B), importing mostly from Germany ($62.7B), Italy ($25.1B), United States ($19.7B), France ($16.3B), and China ($14.9B).
Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of age)
• 98% have an account with a financial institution
• 65% have a credit card
• 72% make online purchases
Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.6 out of 100) ranked 22nd out of 34 OECD high income countries ranked 36th out of 190 countries worldwide (2020, World Bank).
Exports
$305 billion (2020). Gold ($68.5B), Packaged Medicaments ($46.3B), Blood, antisera, vaccines, toxins and cultures ($30.2B), Base Metal Watches ($11.5B), and Nitrogen Heterocyclic Compounds ($11.4B), exporting mostly to United States ($62B), Germany ($49.2B), China ($17.3B), France ($16.3B), and United Kingdom ($14.5B).
Main local online stores
igitec.ch, Zalando and Amazon. Other top retail sites include Nespresso, brack.ch, microspot.ch, leshop.ch, galaxus.ch, coopathome.ch and zurrose.ch.
Economic freedom
‘Free’ (rated 84.2 out of 100) ranked 2nd out of 45 European countries ranked 4 out of 186 countries worldwide (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)
Global Innovation Index
Ranked 1st out of 39 European countries, 1st out of 132 worldwide.
The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.
Economy data sources: WTO/OEC/CIA/Esomar/Datareportal
Service Exports (in $)
Source: OEC
Service Imports (in $)
Source: OEC
Most specialised products by RCA Index
Specialisation is measured using Revealed Comparative Advantage, an index that takes the ratio between Switzerland 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 Switzerland is not specialized in
Source: OEC
Which payment methods do you prefer when shopping online?
Sources: Y&R; Futurecom
E-commerce payment method in Switzerland, split by value
Source: J.P. Morgan 2019 Payment trends
Most popular online stores in Switzerland in 2018, by e-commerce net sales
(in million U.S. dollars)
Source: EcommerceDB.com
Preferred e-commerce methods
Source: Y&R Group Switzerland

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
German, Italian, French
Information channels
Broadcasting is dominated by the public Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), which operates in French, German, Italian and Romansh. Most of its funding comes from TV licence fee revenues, with a smaller amount from advertising. In a 2018 referendum, more than 70% of voters rejected a proposal to abolish the licence fee. Private radio and TV stations operate at a regional level. Stations from France, Germany and Italy are widely available, often via cable and satellite. Some German commercial broadcasters provide tailored versions of their TV channels for the Swiss market. Switzerland’s press has full editorial freedom and mainly operates along regional lines which reflect linguistic divisions. Consolidation of newspaper ownership has forced some smaller papers to close, according to Freedom House.
The press
Neue Zürcher Zeitung – Zurich-based daily
Tages-Anzeiger – Zurich-based daily
Le Temps – Geneva-based daily
La Tribune de Geneve – daily
Corriere del Ticino – Lugano-based daily
Television
SRF – public, in German
RSI – public, in Italian
RTS – public, in French
Radio
SRF – public, in German
RTS – public, in French
RSI – public, in Italian
RTR – public, in Romansh
News agency
Swissinfo – news site run by public broadcaster, content in 10 languages
Media data source: BBC
Internet Data
Internet users
98% penetration, 8.57 million
Share of web traffic by device
39.16% mobile phones, 57.97% computers (laptops and desktops), 2.84% tablet devices, others 0.03%
Median speed of mobile Internet connection
78.57 Mbps
Median speed of fixed Internet connection
109.65 Mbps
Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 119%
Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 99.7%
Most popular web search engines
Google (94.19%), Bing (3.13%), Duckduckgo (0.89%), Ecosia (0.84%), Yahoo (0.72%), Yandex Ru (0.07%)
Most used social media
Facebook (59.53%), Pinterest (15.74%), Twitter(12.34%), Instagram (9.38%), YouTube (1.98%), Tumblr (0.41%)
Internet data sources: Datareportal/Statcounter
Social statistics
Life expectancy
83.60 yrs (2020)
Average age of the population
47.5 yrs (2020)
Glass Ceiling Index
45.3 out 100, ranked 27th 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.
Healthcare expenditure
12.1% of GDP (2016)
Graduates (tertiary education)
In Switzerland, 44% of 25-64 year-olds held a tertiary degree in 2018, compared to 39% on average across OECD countries. The share of tertiary educational attainment is higher for the younger generation. The share of 25-34 year-olds with tertiary education increased by 13 percentage points – from 38% to 51% – over the last decade, in line with the average increase across OECD countries.
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 spoken in Switzerland

Legend
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German
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French
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Italian
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Romansh
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Bilingual areas and cities
The geographical distribution of languages 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: Philippe Dubach, Unsplash