Ranking: largest Russian Translation Companies 2015

check_circle — data provided in the survey has been verified by access to financial or management accounting documents.

If you spot an error, or would like to add information to the table, please contact me @ [email protected]

Contents

1. Overview.
2. Ranking methodology.
3. How we check and verify data.
4. Conclusions: market growth rate and key trends.
5. Market volume estimate.

1. The survey was open to companies from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries. We received over 140 responses, including 94 qualified responses from companies headquartered in Russia. 21% of companies were new to the survey, while 79% completed the survey in, or prior to, 2013.
2. Financial data and documents are considered very sensitive information in Russia. Nevertheless, 13 companies have agreed to provide documents to verify the data submitted in the survey. We would like to express our thanks to the following participants: TLS, Tolmach, Nedra, Profperevod, Invariant, Literra, London-Moscow, Worldwide Translation Services, Nash Perevod, Proflingva, Monoton, Ediniy Tsentr Sudebnykh Perevodov and Marines. Their effort helps make the Russian market more transparent and data more credible.

2. The exchange rate fluctuated heavily at the end of 2014 and in the beginning of 2015. To avoid confusion and manipulation, we used a fixed exchange rate of 38.6 roubles per USD. This figure is an average of the exchange rate used for every trading day of 2014.
3. Most Russian companies have multiple legal bodies to run their business (from 2-3 to 10-11). The revenue figures in the table represent an aggregated value for all legal bodies. Only actual revenue has been counted for purposes of this report. Thus, remuneration for 2014 contracts paid in 2015 has been excluded.
4. The revenue comprises any services that the company provided, including voiceover, DTP, foreign language training, selling software, etc.

We have used the following methods to verify that the companies listed exist, and are potentially capable of producing the revenue declared in the survey. These methods were:

• Competitive analysis.
• Visiting headquarters and visually checking for assets.
• Comparing data provided with the official data in the legal body register (EGRUL/ USRLE).

Based on this, we can affirm that all medium to large providers in the list do indeed exist and have assets, and are potentially capable of producing the revenue declared in the survey. There are no virtual or fake companies in the list. However, we cannot guarantee that the data provided by companies is 100% accurate.

Some of the factors that may have contributed to growth include:

• The devaluation of the rouble has turned a stable volume paid in USD into 21% growth rate in roubles. However, rouble inflation in 2014 was 11.4%.
• Growing companies were more willing to participate in the ranking, while those whose business declined opted not to provide data.
• The demand for translations typically increases at the early stages of economic slowdown, as businesses typically hire foreign consultants and the capital flees abroad.
• The downturn of the economy (GDP growth fell to 0.6%) started affecting the translation industry at the end of 2014, and will be more clearly seen in 2015. 60% of respondents have stated that their growth in the first quarter of 2015 either nil or negative.

While the leading companies grew by 16% on average in roubles, when counting in USD the total revenue declined by 5% if we apply the average exchange rate, or by 29% if we apply the current exchange rate for May 2015.

According to our estimate based on official registry data, there are some 1500 translation companies in Russia. Based on our research from 2014, a typical company with annual turnover under $1 million earns 1,05 million RUR, or $27,200 per employee per year. Based on this and a speculation that there are 3 employees on average in the remaining ~1400 companies that didn’t take part in the survey, we arrived at the following estimate:

Survey participants revenue: $160 m (at 38.6 rur per usd exchange rate)
Other companies: 1400 * 3 * $27,200 = $114,2 m
Total: $274.2 m

It is hard to provide a more precise estimate since translation companies in Russia are not obligated to disclose their official financial data to public. Some 700 firms do, with an annual turnover of only $112 m.