The World's Top Translation Companies by Revenue (Updated Feb 2024)

The language services and technology industry includes over 18,000 players worldwide, ranging from small translation agencies to global content behemoths.

This diverse group of language service providers (LSPs) and translation technology vendors adds up to an industry with a value of $67.2B in 2022 and is expected to grow by 6.2% to $98B by 2028.

In 2023 the LSP market grew by 5.2% to more the $9.6B with a large proportion of this growth as a result of M&A driven consolidation in the industry. In this same period LanguageWire saw a growth of 7.4%, including its recent acquisition of Finnish language service provider Delingua.

Other significant changes in the the industry saw LanguageLine surpassing Super Agency RWS to become the 2nd largest LSP in terms of revenues. Accolad also saw a significant decline of -18% in revenues in 2023 compared to the previous year.

This brief article offers one method of analysing the complex language industry by listing the world’s largest language service providers (LSPs) by revenue.

What is the Language Industry?

Before we rank the top companies in the language industry by revenue, we need to note that this kind of analysis isn’t a precise science. The language industry is constantly changing, and you should view any ranking as a brief snapshot.

For starters, what is the language industry?

The European Union’s Language Industry Platform (LIND) defines the language industry as “professionals working in translation, interpreting, subtitling and dubbing, localisation, language technology tools development, international conference organisation, language teaching, and linguistic consultancy.”

But this definition still leaves a lot of room for interpretation. As language services and technologies evolve, the boundaries between the industries become blurred.

For example, AI tools like Google Translate, Grammarly and most recently ChatGPT, are perhaps some of the most frequented and better-known translation and proofreading applications in the world. However, none of these companies are active players in the language services industry.

The World’s Top Translation Companies According to Slator

So, how do we make sense of it all?

One group that works to provide us with industry insights is Slator, a leading purveyor of news, analysis, and research for the language industry. Like the Fortune 500 approach, Slator ranks the world’s largest language service providers by revenue in their annual report, The Slator Language Service Provider Index (LSPI).

Slator is a highly respected source of business insights into the translation & technology companies that make up the large, complex, and ever-changing language service industry.

As such they have recognised the need to highlight a greater diversity within the industry both in terms of the size of a provider, from boutique to super-provider, as well as the range of services they can provide. Their 2024 Language Service Provider Index reflects this with four new categorisations that segment the industry by revenue.

They are, as defined by Slator themselves:

• Super Agencies – full-service, standalone LSPs with revenues greater than USD 200m;

• Leaders – LSPs with revenues greater than USD 25m and that do not fall into the Super Agency category;

• Challengers – LSPs with revenues between USD 8m and USD 25m;

• Boutiques – LSPs with revenues between USD 1m and USD 8m.

LanguageWire and Slator’s 2024 Language Service Provider Index

In Slator’s 2024 Language Service Provider Index, LanguageWire ranks 23rd out of 350 of the world’s top providers with the segmentation of Leader.

We achieved this position in part thanks to a constant focus on innovation and our dedication to customer success. Recent advances in AI & machine learning, together with our dedicated teams of experts, have made it possible to carve out additional growth in a crowded and highly competitive industry.

However, it’s crucial to note that bigger is not always better and the new segmentation reflects this. Sometimes smaller specialists can serve niche multilingual content needs best, while not all LSPs can boast the same level of data security and quality standards.

LanguageWire always strives to find the perfect balance for our customers without compromising on the highest levels of quality.

Now, without further ado, here are the top translation companies, according to Slator:

To download the full report please visit Slator's website.

If you would like more information on the language services and technologies which LanguageWire can provide you then, please fill out the form below and someone will be in touch.