Translation Services
Market, Supplier, Risk and
Competitive Intelligence

Industry Outlook & Drivers

• The market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 2–3 percent to $59.5 billion by 2023
• Regions, such as North America, Western Europe, and some parts of APAC, such as Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, have a high market maturity. The APAC and parts of LATAM are expected to be the future growth driving markets of translation services

Market Overview on Translation Services

The global translation industry is expected to witness a robust growth in the next four years. The key supplier initiatives in the market are driven toward expanding service portfolio, enhancing geographical footprint and improved technological capabilities, aimed at increasing efficiency and reducing the cost for buyers.

Technology Trends - Machine Translation

Machine translation is a statistical automated translation method. Open sourced SMT methods are widely used and it is an emerging trend in the market. Most of the Language service providers are using machine translation.

• In the US & Europe, 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 one-time payment for the portal access, while others offer it for free
• Additional charges are incurred for the following services:

1.  Specialized reporting
2. Email notifications to alert changes in project status
3. Ability to track departmental translation expenditures

Machine translation Technology Tools

• Spend involved in cloud based machine translation is less when compared to on premises MT server. Fortune 500 companies are strategically engaging with LSP who provides machine translations with human post-editing services.Ex: PepsiCo, Lilly, Sun Chemicals, Novartis and Xerox.

Market Trends – Process Centralization

Most of the organizations in North America and European nations are moving towards the centralizing their translation activities and streamlining the budget in order to achieve process efficiencies, spend visibility and cost saving.

Centralization of translation services includes the following parameters:

• Governance structure – Process optimization and centralization
• Technology – SaaS based Translation Management System
• Supplier sourcing strategy – Managed Translation Service Provider

Demand & Supply Overview

Languages in Demand

• The demand for the translation of documents to languages such as English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese is quite high
• Translation to and from common Asian languages such as Korean, Japanese, and Chinese is also in high demand, followed by Russian and Turkish

Supply Market

• The suppliers with Cloud based translation solutions are in demand and the supply market is well matured
• Suppliers are increasingly investing in technologies, with real-time translation being the key focus area
• This would enable the suppliers to reduce their cost, enabling a reduction in prices and improvement in turnaround time