[bshimmin]

Another reason is support for multiple languages. Many companies in western countries may start by using a typeface that only covers Latin script.

I was doing some work with Nokia around the time they released Nokia Pure, and I can certainly say that multiple language support was, at least for us, one of the primary drivers for using it, and it made our lives a lot easier at the time.

[harimau777]

It would be interesting to see a resource that paired up equivalent fonts in different scripts. It could take into account form ("This Arabic font uses similar shapes to Helvetica"), function ("This is the Chinese 'default' front similar to Times New Roman"), and what the font implies ("This font is used as a 'futuristic' font in Japanese similar to Eurostyle or Bank Gothic in Latin script").