More Translation Companies Overlooked for CSA's Top 30

It is difficult to rank privately held companies when these companies are not required to report their financial statements to anyone. This was mentioned previously, when identifying 6 translation companies possibly overlooked for Common Sense Advisory's list of the Top 30 Largest Language Services Companies. Among the translation companies on the 2009 Inc. 5000, there may be a couple more that would have made CSA's recent list if all information had been disclosed previously.

• CyraCom International - $20.1 million
  This fast-growing phone interpreting and translation company may have made the original list depending on how numbers were rounded. In any case, this shows steady gains on Language Line, that giant that would have decreased in revenues over the past 5 years had they not gobbled up many of their competitors in acquisitions. Since these notes about potentially "overlooked" companies are more beneficial for rankings in future years, we should just make a note to see what happens with CyraCom, its sister company Voiance Langauge Services, and the other 6 companies during the rest of 2009.
  
• EPAM - $?? million
  This $159.3 million software engineering firm offers many tech services including localization, but there is no indication as to how much revenue actually comes from localization. It could be small, but $159.3 million leaves a lot of room to hide localization revenues, so its at least worth a quick look.
  Update 8/14/2009: sources are already confirming that EPAM does very little translation and localization work.

Growing Translation Companies on Inc. 5000 in 2009

About a dozen private translation companies have made the new Inc. 5000 list in 2009. As translation firms finally start to feel the pinch in 2009, it is great to see who had a running start from 2008 and therefore might still be creating jobs in this tough economy.


Quirks

Some of these companies have various quirks. A few obtain their revenue primarily from non-translation and non-interpretation services. One firm may have reported different numbers to different firms, thus manipulating more convenient rankings. One of them even decreased in revenue from the previous year, but still made the list because it increased in revenue over the required 3-year period. One of the largest translation-only firms appears to actually be reducing jobs in the industry by routinely gobbling up various translation companies in acquisitions and laying off most of the newly acquired employees. However, most of these companies appear to be growing organically and are a good example of the entrepreneurial spirit exemplified by this industry of a million small businesses.

• AdaQuest
  (sources say this is primarily a localization company despite the fact that its website makes it appear as if most revenue comes from other IT services)
• CETRA Language Solutions
• CyraCom International
• Dynamic Language Center
• Eriksen Translations
  (drop in revenue from previous year)
• EPAM Systems
  (most revenue comes from other tech services; software localization is the last of six services listed)
• Geneva Worldwide
• Language Services Associates
• LinguaLinx
• MotionPoint
• Net Transcripts
  (most revenue appears to come from transcription)
• ProTranslating
• Sajan
• STOPS
  (most revenue appears to come from transportation)
• TransPerfect
• Welocalize
  (A report of 2005 revenue at $20M placed them on CSA's Top 20 list a few years ago, but this year's report that 2005 revenue was only $13.1M placed them in a higher ranking on the Inc. 5000. That's very... um, uh... convenient... and probably the result of whether or not an acquisition was counted in that year's revenue.)

Other interesting notes

Half of these companies were founded in the 1990s, and CyraCom and STOPS are currently the oldest veterans of the Inc. 5000, having first graced the 2004 list.

Click here to see what additional translation companies that have appeared on Inc. 5000 lists in previous years.

Update 8/17/09: corrections were made to CETRA and DLC numbers. STOPS and Net Transcripts were removed from the chart, as their primary sources of revenue were not translation and interpretation. As the chart implies in the title, the companies listed provide language services as their primary business, and they are mostly growing organically (not primarily as a result of acquisitions).

Update 8/20/09: AdaQuest and Geneva were added to the list.