(BOSTON, MA) – The global market for outsourced language services and technology will surpass US$34.7 billion in 2013, according to a study by independent market research firm Common Sense Advisory. In its annual industry research report, “Language Services Market: 2013,” the firm details the findings of its comprehensive study, identifying over 27,600 unique suppliers of translation and interpreting services across 154 countries.
The firm, which has published market size estimates and global rankings for the past eight years, found that the demand for language services continues, and is growing at an annual rate of 5.13%. Global trade, international business, and content growth are three critical drivers for the language services industry.
As part of the study, the firm surveyed more than 1,000 language service providers to collect actual reported revenue for 2011, 2012, and expected revenue for 2013.
“Language service providers in most regions of the world reported steady growth during fiscal year 2012, and their projected growth rates for 2013 are even stronger,” explained Don DePalma, Common Sense Advisory’s founder and Chief Strategy Officer. “The widespread availability of online machine translation has not decreased the demand for high-quality human translation. If anything, translation technologies appear to be acting as a catalyst to generate more demand.”
The five highest-ranked companies on the list of the largest 100 language services companies, listed according to 2012 revenues, are: Lionbridge Technologies, Hewlett-Packard's Application and Content Globalization group, TransPerfect, SDL, and LanguageLine Solutions.
Included within the report are:
- Current market size estimates for the language services industry along with a detailed description of the research methodology
- Projected growth rates for the industry through 2016, including region-specific breakdowns
- Rankings of the largest 100 global industry leaders
- Critical benchmarks for LSP financial performance, including average revenue per employee, average revenue per salesperson, and average revenue per project manager, including differences by company size and geography
- Regional rankings of the largest translation and interpreting companies in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, and Oceania
- Reporting on the fastest-growing services in the industry, such as translation, transcreation, multimedia localization, telephone interpreting, and other offerings
- Breakdown of the market revealing market size estimates for on-site interpreting, translation technology, machine translation post-editing, video interpreting, multimedia localization, and other services
Adds Vijayalaxmi Hegde, Director of Research Operations at Common Sense Advisory and report analyst, “The market for outsourced language services and supporting technology is immensely important to the organizations and individuals that produce or consume information. We predict that increasing demand will push the market to US$43 billion by 2016.”
The full list of the largest language services providers based on revenue for 2012 is available at: http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/AbstractView.aspx?ArticleID=5505. The full report is available as part of the firm’s research membership or for purchase at http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=29.
About Common Sense Advisory
Common Sense Advisory is an independent market research company helping companies profitably grow their international businesses and gain access to new markets and new customers. Its focus is on assisting its clients to operationalize, benchmark, optimize, and innovate industry best practices in translation, localization, interpreting, globalization, and internationalization. For more information, visit: http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com or www.twitter.com/CSA_Research.
Media contact: Melissa C. Gillespie, Melissa@commonsenseadvisory.com, +1 760-522-4362