In year 2006 the entire translation, interpretation and localization industry was estimated at $9.46 billion in United States. Language markets in Europe and Asia are much larger as these places are mostly non-English speaking with highly heterogeneous language profile. Some countries also demonstrate strong tendency to legislate usage of native language. With increase international trades, most of these countries require complete set of business and trade support, including the large scale development of translator resources.


Industry research into the language market for Asia and Europe is difficult as there is no viable umbrella organization or dedicated market research agency capable of collecting and synthesizing useful multi-year figures. However, it can safely be assumed that the language market in Asia and Europe is in linear proportion with total trade. Trades from one language region with another language region will always propel the growth of language market in proportion. Using the ratio of the language industry in United States as benchmark, it is therefore possible to estimate the language market size in Europe and Asia.


As multi-national corporations in major economies such as United States, Germany and Japan move their products across global markets, translation, interpretation and localization of brands, user guides, training materials, business documents and supporting services will have to be in place. The annual growth of global language market can easily attain 10% for the next few years.


Traditionally the language industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in translating written material and interpreting speech from one language to another. Services provided by this industry include document and web page translation and localization. This includes the translation of content into languages for use in other countries, taking into account any unique cultural and linguistic traits. In recent years, the market is enlarged to include projects ranging from rewriting and repurposing of software, video, film subtitling and other related services.


Information Technology sector was the once-dominant industry for language translation and localization. Today, top industries spending on translation and localization services are in aerospace, defense, automotive, transportation, beverages, tobacco, chemicals, computer, electronics, business services and legal services. Language suppliers are also diversifying into high growth sectors and are building new customer relationships to explore the best approach to servicing these vertical industries. Each industry has its own workflow and pricing options on translation and localization has to be made available accordingly.


Over the years many language agencies have invented their own project management and workflow systems. As these systems grow bigger, it has become harder to maintain due to hardware and software obsolescence. In recent year, tried and tested robust off-the-shelf solutions offering versions tailored for different size segments are becoming more available. As more and more mid and larger language companies migrate towards off-the-shelf systems, the language industry is likely to be dominated by a few suppliers of complete translation enterprise resource software. These productive technologies will further propel the industry when practicing translators learn to plug themselves effectively into the distributed business infrastructure. It is also likely to have a positive influence on best practice among language practitioners from around the region


There is also heavy investment in Europe, United States and Japan on language research of authoring resources and machine translation with the aim to develop plain language content development localization. With more stylistically normalized and easier-to-access translation machine, mass translation of controlled language text can be of great benefit to all industries. However, clear writing in all languages in many vertical industries is a long and slow process. Heavy research funding would be required and this may not be possible if there is no cost effectiveness to justify for it.