The results are in for TransPerfect and 2021 was a milestone year. The Super Agency has just become the first language service provider (LSP) ever to record annual revenues of USD 1bn or more.
As a privately-owned company headquartered in the US, TransPerfect is not required to disclose revenues publicly, but has chosen to do so on a regular basis.
TransPerfect not only crossed the billion-dollar mark to hit revenues in excess of USD 1.1bn in 2021, but also successfully retained its spot as the world’s largest LSP by revenue — despite a head-to-head challenge from UK rival RWS following its transformative acquisition of SDL in late 2020.
The figure represents a 31% increase from TransPerfect’s 2020 revenues of USD 852m. Put differently, TransPerfect added roughly USD 260m to its top line in the space of 12 months. In the final three months of the 2021 (Q4), revenues grew 33% (+USD 83m) from the same quarter the previous year.
+80% Organic
Although a portion of TransPerfect’s growth came from M&A transactions completed in 2021, such as the acquisition of Semantix in late July, the majority of growth in 2020 (more than 80%, in fact) was organic — this according to TransPerfect President and CEO, Phil Shawe.
Shawe also confirmed that the USD 1.1bn revenue figure includes contributions from companies TransPerfect acquired from the date the transaction closed. This means the top-line figure includes around five months of contributions from Nordic translation and interpreting provider Semantix, which was the most sizable of TransPerfect’s 2021 acquisitions at around USD 87m in annual revenues.
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Discussing TransPerfect’s increased presence in the Nordics, Shawe said, “Coming into the merger, the Semantix team had a very clear vision of how the combined companies can collectively support their customers’ needs as a local provider in the Nordics while also leveraging TransPerfect’s global footprint and GlobalLink technology.”
Among TransPerfect’s 2021 acquisitions are UK-based web marketing company Webcertain, Spain-based Polford Studios, and Skilltelligence, a data services provider based in Poland, in addition to a clinical research services company and a language training firm.
Broad-based Growth and Outperformers
Shawe described TransPerfect’s organic growth in 2021 as “spread fairly evenly across geographic regions and business sectors.” The company’s GlobalLink technology division, which includes an enterprise translation management system (TMS) solution, and DataForce, its data collection and annotation services, outperformed on growth.
Meanwhile, revenues from TransPerfect’s machine translation solutions increased 38% from 2020. The biggest growth in demand for its AI solutions came from customers in the life sciences, legal, financial, and manufacturing sectors.
Shawe said the company now invests more than USD 40m in technology R&D annually. Key items on the technology roadmap include upgrading the common elements of the GlobalLink platform, streamlining the UX, and integrating various GlobalLink modules.
He added, “This includes releasing new non-translation technology focused on functionality ranging from file sharing to video content management. Other major releases planned for 2022 include new versions of our online translation and review editors, enhancements to our PDF workflows, and a host of new features for DataForce.”
Broad-based sector growth is set to continue in 2022, with Shawe expecting GlobalLink technology sales to display “continued strength.” He also pointed out that demand from TransPerfect’s gaming customers has been increasing for some time and continues to do so.
Commenting on trends directly linked to the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions, Shawe said the travel and hospitality sector is continuing its recovery and is also expected to “outperform others” in 2022. Meanwhile, “interpretation and live captioning will likely increase proportionately with the return of live events.”
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