Local leaders in language services: Language service providers ranked by geography, 2023

Report by Sarah Hickey.

If you follow Nimdzi Insights then you know that we like to create rankings. Why, you ask? The answer’s simple. We — along with our clients and industry peers — like to know who the top players are in any given field or area. We look at the global market for language services as a whole, as well as in-country markets and leaders in specific industry verticals and services.

By far our most popular and well-known ranking, the Nimdzi 100 comes out in late February/early March of each year and lists the 100 largest language service providers (LSPs) in the world. The ranking is published alongside an in-depth analysis of the market for language services. Companies featured have an annual revenue of at least USD 10 million (up to USD 1 billion +). In addition, this year, for the first time, we also published a ranking of the next in line (USD 3 million +). The medium-sized players that are keeping this industry afloat. The “premier mid-market providers” that are the engine this industry runs on. 

Also this year, for the first time, we are now publishing a ranking of the top providers (by revenue) per geo region. The geo rankings are based on the Nimdzi 100 ranking of the largest LSPs in the world as well as our ranking of the premier mid-market providers with revenues of USD 3 million plus. The regions we’ve identified are:

• North America
• South America
• The Nordics
• DACH
• France and Benelux
• Southern Europe
• Eastern Europe
• UK and Ireland
• Asia and the Middle East
• Oceania

LSPs ranked by geo location

Top providers in North America

Top providers in South America

Top providers in the Nordics

Top providers in the DACH region

Top providers in France and the Benelux region

Top providers in Southern Europe

Top providers in Eastern Europe

Top providers in the UK and Ireland

Top providers in Asia and the Middle East

Top providers in Oceania

Our rankings are live documents and are therefore subject to change.

Notes:

• (FY) fiscal year, figures for the latest financial year (verified with financial reports)
• (v) verified, data provided by companies
• (e) estimated revenue, based on extensive industry research
• Several companies appear to have the same revenue due to currency rounding. However, the ranking order is accurate considering the second decimal with one exception: on the North America ranking two companies have the exact same revenue, which is why in this case the ranking number is repeated (#39).

Methodology

• The rankings in this report are based on two other Nimdzi rankings: 1) The Nimdzi 100 that lists the 100 largest LSPs in the world; 2) Our ranking of the premier mid-market providers with revenues of USD 3 million plus.  
• We’re listing full company revenue, not just language services revenue. It is impossible to separate the two in external sources of information, such as annual reports, press releases, and stock listings, which provide the foundation for our work.
• We use data from the latest fiscal year for each company. This means the numbers for some companies will not reflect 2022 calendar year revenues. 
• Our definition of language services includes: translation, localization, transcreation, multilingual desktop publishing (DTP), language quality assurance, linguistic testing, multilingual copywriting, multilingual technical writing, language project management, interpreting, video remote interpreting, telephone interpreting, linguist verification and staffing, media localization, versioning, adaptation, subtitling, voiceover, dubbing, machine translation (MT), training machine translation engines, cultural consulting, data services, and related services.
• Growth rates are calculated in USD. 
• We use average annual currency conversion rates to US dollars, published by the Internal Revenue Service of the United States for each day of trading in 2022. 

Most importantly: These rankings do not claim to be comprehensive lists of all LSPs that fall into the USD 3 million + revenue bracket for each geo region. As our estimate of the number of LSPs in the world shows, we expect that there are at least 2,500 companies that potentially qualify for this size category. So what this report provides is a snapshot and a starting point that honors those LSPs that provided their company data to us in recent Nimdzi surveys.

Are you missing from the list? Probably. Well, let’s fix that, shall we? We encourage anyone who wants to be part of our rankings to provide their data here. We expect these geo rankings to grow significantly in the coming years, so make sure you put your company on the map!

This has been a preview. The full report can be accessed online by Nimdzi Partners.

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