Translation Services

Global Translation Services Industry Outlook

• The market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 2–3 percent to $59.5 billion by 2023

• Regions, such as North America, and Western Europe, and some parts of APAC, such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have a high market maturity. The APAC and parts of LATAM are expected to be the future growth-driving markets of translation services

Global Translation Industry Trends

• In developed regions, like the US and Europe, Machine Translation services are expected to increase mainly due to effective management and speed to market as well as cost effectiveness. In the US and Europe, Advanced Translation techniques such as neural machine Translation is growing exponentially.

• In developing economies, like the MEA and APAC, traditional Translation services are expected to decrease as most of the large MNC are keen on implementing centralized governance structure. Machine Translation services are expected to take over the traditional Translation however the human interference is must as the MTPE (Post-editing services of machine translated output) need as proof reading by experts before hitting the market.

Global Translation Market Maturity

• Europe and North America are well-matured markets. Globally, top MNCs are outsourcing their Translation activities to global and regional suppliers

• APAC and MEA are witnessing higher adoption due to the efforts by large global buyers to consolidate the supply base

Global Translation Drivers and Constraints

The key drivers are transforming traditional Translation to effective, measurable and technology-enabled machine Translation solutions by outsourcing to global/regional suppliers

Drivers

• Globalization: The growing trend of globalization has increased the demand for translation services. As businesses expand their operations to different countries and regions, they need to communicate with clients, customers, and partners in their native language. This creates a need for translation services to ensure effective communication.

• Technological advancements: The advancement of technology has revolutionized the translation industry. Machine translation tools, such as Google Translate and Microsoft Translator, have made translation more accessible and affordable. Additionally, translation management software has streamlined the translation process, making it more efficient and cost-effective.

• E-commerce: The growth of e-commerce has increased the demand for translation services. Businesses selling products online need to provide product descriptions, customer service, and marketing materials in different languages to reach a global audience. This creates a need for translation services to ensure accurate and effective communication.

• Multilingual content: The need for multilingual content has increased as businesses create content for different markets. This includes website content, marketing materials, and technical documentation. As businesses expand globally, they need to ensure that their content is translated accurately and effectively to reach their target audience.

Constraints

Budget/Funding

• Budget constraint is a major problem with some mid-sized organizations, which leads to a compromise in quality of output or time to market

• Convincing the management to deploy/implement machine Translation services are the key challenges, as the companies hesitate to do initial investment for TMS

Change Management

• Internal (SMEs, content designers and Translation experts) as well as external stakeholders should be communicated with effectively about their roles and responsibilities before implementing Translation

Language availability: 

• Some less commonly spoken languages may not have a large pool of available translators, making it difficult for businesses to find quality translation services. This can be a significant constraint for businesses that need to translate content into a specific language.

Translation Services Technology Trends

Machine Translation is a statistical automated translation method. Word by word translation is not preferred by companies currently. NMT is widely used, and it is an emerging trend in the market. Most of the language service providers are using Artificial Intelligence-driven Machine Translation. Cloud-based machine translation services are gaining importance. Cloud translation helps to manage projects easier with a dashboard solution

• Currently, cloud based machine Translation services are gaining importance. Cloud Translation helps to manage projects easier with a dashboard solution.

• Most of the global suppliers offer the portal services to clients, who opt for document Translation in varies languages.

• Some suppliers charge a on time payment for the portal access, while others offer it for free.

• Additional charges are incurred for the following services:

–Specialized reporting

–Email notifications to alert changes in project status

–Ability to track departmental Translation expenditures

• AI-Powered Machine Translations are used by retail companies to reach their global customers

• Translating product specifications, care labels, user-generated content, and customer queries tend to be costly. But with help of Global Link's MT technology, multilingual content can be translated with greater efficiency, in terms of cost and time

• Retails can benefit themselves with customer support, consumer surveys, internal emails, user-generated content, product specifications, and technical specifications

Cost Drivers : Translation Services

Major cost drivers of Corporate Translation services are

• Increase in translators rates influence the overall Translation cost, as it is the key cost factor in globalization.

• Advancements in Translation Technology – Technology cost, project management cost and industry specific Translation memory maintenance cost is also considered to be major drivers.

Types of Translation services

• Companies need to classify the types of Translation process before engaging with suppliers, based on the Translation technology, i.e., Simple Machine Translation or Neural Machine Translation

• Drafting distinct KPI’s and SLA’s with clauses on quality for Post-editing Machine Translation (MTPE) output services is very crucial in order to reduce the burden of post-editing services

• Post Translation services negotiation - Light editing & Full editing services negotiation services with per word pricing can bring significant cost saving.

• Opting for full editing services would be beneficial as the price variation between lite & full editing is very small and client can avail discounts with full editing service engagement

Supply Trends and Insights : Translation Services

Global/Regional Supplier

• OpenAI launches GPT-4, improving accuracy and introducing image input - AcquLike its predecessor GPT-3, GPT-4 is capable of producing fluent and fairly human-like text in response to human prompts. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has noted that GPT-4 is a multimodal model, which means it can also respond to image input, in addition to text-based input. 

• Voxqube announces launch of AI-powered dubbing tool for YouTube content creators - Voxqube, an AI-powered language services startup, launched a groundbreaking new dubbing tool designed specifically for YouTube content creators. This cutting-edge technology will enable creators to easily create multilingual soundtracks for their videos, significantly expanding their global reach and audience.

• Acolad wins new tender of the Publications Office of the European Union - New engagement: The #1 European content and language solutions provider was awarded contract until 2027. Acolad will support the Publications Office of the European Union with a total of 24 languages, in a project valued at 5.4 million Euros 

• Baltic Media Ltd is Empowering Companies to Expand Operations in the Northern European Market - Companies looking to expand in Northern Europe. Although English is one of the continent's official languages, dozen others are used, such as Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Russian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, and German. For a successful EU expansion, effective communication is critical. Baltic Media Ltd, one of the leading ISO-certified providers of digital translation services in Northern Europe, offers its services.

Engagement Trends

• Most adopted sourcing models: Managed Translation Service Provider Model

• Why? The primary reasons for using the regional/local strategy are due to the highly fragmented market, supply variance and the various legal regulations in each country

• Most adopted pricing model: Price per word (Machine Translation)

Supplier Management Trends

• Suppliers continue to innovate their service offerings and provides a wide range of language pairs with advanced machine Translation services, due to which, supplier power is expected to increase by 2023

• Most of the industries that had traditional Translation services are changing approach to machine Translation, due to the impact of COVID-19

• The Translation outsourcing market is seeing a rising demand for machine Translation services. Multi-vendor model is still in practice, while procuring wide Translation services, such as interpretation, website Translation, etc.