What's changing in the Nordic language service market

Nordic Translation Industry Forum brought together more than 200 people and highlighted an accelerated change in the market. While everyone discussed technology and AI, I spied around for disruptions in the usual business dynamic.

Nordic interpreting market is now in a slight decline. This is one of the largest and the most concentrated interpreting markets in Europe, estimated at around 300 million euros a year. However, conditions are changing. The flow of immigrants from Syria has ebbed, and the price has deteriorated due to competitive bidding. Incumbent providers such as Semantix, Sprakservice, and Transvoice make it a priority to protect their business against rising new players such as HeroTolk and EasyTranslate (the later seeing a lot of pushback from interpreters angry with low rates and expecting an immediate handover of the Danish police contract).

Without clear prospects with the public sector business in Sweden and Denmark, the leaders seek alternative sources of growth. They experiment with remote interpreting, chat and voice bots, shifting towards translation and other approaches. However, there must be a ruthless calculation and a natural selection of strategies. To make a difference in companies with $30-100 million in revenue, new business lines must be those that bring in millions. Thinking small is not an option.

Integration processes at build-and-buy LSPs are all the rage this season. Semantix finalizes with TextMinded and Amesto, Acolad brings together AAC Global and Arancho Doc, Summa Linguae integrates Kommunicera. Managers look forward to a safe transition of clients, to cordial mixing of teams & cultures and to a connected IT infrastructure instead of a menagerie of various systems. Once this is done, watch out for more deals! Unlike France, at least five mid-sized Nordic companies remain independent.

Nordic online retail localization is on the rise. I heard from three separate LSPs that their revenues grew this year due to eCommerce localization. Shops expand their product range and pool of languages and drive demand for content creation and translation, as well as multilingual SEO, a key differentiating service. This market is ripe for component CMS, authoring tools, content quality tools like Acrolinx and Congree and for multilingual SEO software.

Media localization reverberated in the LSP community. At NTIF the TV stars have been represented by Plint/Nordisk Undertext, the latest player to become the world’s fastest-growing LSP thanks to Netflix boom. In an amazing sprint, Plint went from $2 million to $25 million in three years, and the next question after a silent "wow, what?" is how far the company can continue in a similar fashion. IYUNO’s similar rise has been crowned with a merger with BTI Studios, while Zoo Digital in the UK has approached $30 million and stayed at this level for two years.

Trends aside, NTIF reminded me how cultured and close-knit the Nordic community of language services professionals is. The language industry moves everywhere. In China and in the US with optimistic humor, you're expected to be direct and forceful, in France and Russia it's better to be witty and cynical, but Sweden prefers quiet flair with a twist for eco, a lower-key cabin in the woods, fika and flygskam. A society to feel comfortable in.