Annual Review of the Services and Technology Industry That Supports Translation, Localization, and Interpreting
30 Jun 2017
by
Donald A. DePalma, Robert G. Stewart, Dr. Arle Lommel, Hélène Pielmeier
More than seven billion people live in nearly 200 countries and speak roughly 7,000 languages. Country-specific laws and business practices combine with these languages and dialects to create hundreds of locales, each a unique blend that requires linguistic, cultural, business, and other adaptations. Each locale has the potential to interact with any of the others on a personal, transactional, and sometimes governmental level. Meeting the laws, needs, and expectations of inter-locale communication and commerce has fueled the language sector to 43 billion dollars in revenue.
The last 18 months have witnessed fundamental changes in political landscapes, some causing changes or major concerns in trade, immigration and internal relations. Similarly, the language sector has experienced a tumultuous year-and-a-half of technological innovation, corporate acquisitions, and changing client requirements that are slowly reshaping the industry.
Against this global backdrop, CSA Research conducted its 13th consecutive study of the market for outsourced language services and technology. Based on a comprehensive survey of industry providers, this report analyzes the market from January 2016 through June 2017. This report covers:
Market – an overview of the language services and technology market.
Demand – the impact of intrinsic business forces and drivers for growth.
Services and Technology – an overview of services and technologies, and revenue distribution for each category.
Futures – a discussion of how the market sector will evolve.
The first task of any visitor on a global website is to find content in a language he or she can read. Even those with high proficiency in English as a second language strongly prefer content in their mother tongue (see “ Can’t Read, Won’t Buy,” Feb1…
