GrandViewResearch.com announced that machine translation (MT) market revenue is anticipated to reach $983.3 million by 2022.

We know that the MT market hold will continue to strengthen and grow, and translation providers that blindly look the other way will surely be disheartened by this powerful market shift. But how far will machine translation go? Let’s start with the basics.

What is machine translation and why is it so important?

A Brief Introduction to MT

Machine translation, according to Wikipedia, is a “sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of software to translate text or speech from one language to another.” On the most basic level, MT switches words in one language to another. This word-for-word substitution cannot produce a quality translation because translation is based upon the meaning of a complete message or a section of multiple phrases. What machine translation does accomplish is a cost-effective, very fast and easy way to manage large volumes of content. MT costs are significantly lower than human translation costs, machines by nature are faster than humans and managing high volumes is easier with technology.

The Importance of Machine Translation

The sheer volume of website content paired with the increased demand for cost efficient translation services exceeds the capacity of human translation. This intense need is expected to catapult the machine translation market and drive it into massive growth. Why?

• Globalization increases the need to address linguistic diversity of internet content for local audiences
• Online content is expanding at record-breaking speed
• Emerging markets are demanding access to content, goods and services
• Global collaboration amongst employees and work teams is pushing current translation capacities worldwide

There are many challenges for the machine translation market including a serious concern about the overall translation quality mixed with a technology that is difficult to use in an industry that is resistant to change. Any MT project will require post-editing skills that are not currently abundant within the translation providers and these skill will have to be learned quickly to reach the $983.3 million dollar mark.

Machine Translation Market by Sector

The graph from GrandViewResearch.com (click to view) highlights the different market sectors that use machine translation on varying levels. The graph illustrates the growth for machine translation users. The following are the sectors with the highest MT use in terms of volume:

• Automotive: Crucial communication pieces must be quickly and accurately translated for consumers
• IT: Specific vocabulary and terminology must be consistently applied across all channels
• Military & Defense: Time-sensitive document and intelligence translation is critical to military and defense efforts
• Healthcare: Physicians need communication supplements to effectively reach patients and research
• Electronics: Efficient and cost-effective translation required to speed up time-to-market

The machine translation market is here to stay and with the projected revenue of $983.3 million dollars by 2022 is not a number that translation providers can hide from. At INGCO International, we have worked with a variety of MT programs and technology solutions for our clients over the past 10 years. Our post-editing capabilities are consistently expanding and growing stronger to meet and exceed our customers expectations when speed-to-market is at the forefront of everyone’s agenda. Are you looking at machine translation as an option for your high-volume translation needs? Reach out to us today to learn more about the MT solutions that will help mitigate your multilingual communication challenges.