Qualitätssprachendienste Deutschlands (QSD) has released its first report on the state of the German language industry. Compiled from national statistics authority data and the responses of more than 100 companies, the report reviews market size, translation and interpreting prices, common client verticals, machine translation (MT) adoption strategies and technology development. It also lists Germany’s top language services providers and analyzes industry growth over a nine year period, as well as job creation. An additional section takes a look at how the global covid-19 pandemic has affected the sector.
According to the organization — which is a conglomerate of DIN EN ISO 9001 and ISO 17100 certified translation providers — the German market is unique in that it is even more highly fragmented “at the top” than in other western European countries. To show this fragmentation, the report maps multi-language vendors (MLVs), estimating market shares for each. It also claims foreign companies win more translation business in Germany than national leaders combined — which QSD believes will eventually lead to the sale of many of these providers.
The QSD report also discusses local translation providers’ strong focus on technology as digital native clients come into buying power. Much of this development is redundant, writes the group: “Very similar classic client portals. terminology management products, REST APIs for Plunet and [quality assurance] QA checkers will compete for buyer attention.”
More information is available at https://www.qsd.de/en/language-services-in-germany-2020/.
