This report answers a question that surely keeps you awake at night: Which is the biggest translation company? Perhaps more to the point, which are the 15 biggest translation companies? Should that keep you awake longer, or will figuring out which 15 be equivalent to counting 15 sheep on your way to dreamland?

Should you care who the top 15 companies are? If you’re a supplier, you probably care very much because you want to be the fourth biggest in the marketplace after Bowne Global, Lionbridge, and SDL. Sorry, too late. Titan, soon to be part of L-3 Communications, is already bigger than those 3, so the best any wannabe firm can be is number 5. Or at least number 5 until Lionbridge and Bowne Global complete their long pas de deux on the way to the M&A altar.

If you buy translation or localization, you probably know many of the names in this list and may already be one of their clients. The methodology outlined in this report won’t help the actual translation or localization buyer who worries about price, quality, and timeliness. Instead, it will help the “economic” buyer inside a company’s procurement department who must look at the financial health and soundness of suppliers. Among other things we developed our Human-Delivered Services Index so that we have some “comparable” firms for benchmarking the business fundamentals and financial health of suppliers.

We also applied the Herfindahl Index to determine whether the industry is getting a tad too cozy with its current wave of consolidation. We found that the language services industry is still moderately concentrated, so we don’t expect any Department of Justice jihad anytime soon against acquisitive LSPs. We keep noting that the U.S. government tends to ignore language issues, so it would really surprise us if M&A activity suddenly alerted DOJ lawyers to the burning issue of translation company consolidation, surely the newest threat to the American way of life.