A recent case of price war among Chinese translation companies

Recently occurred an incident in the cycle of Chinese translation companies, the founder of one agency accused another of seizing his to-be big client with a higher price. He said this was unacceptable and the reason that his competitor managed to get the project is probably that he offered a bride to someone from the client’s company.

This is just a tip of the iceberg, as quality has always been underestimated compared to price. Both translation companies and clients usually pay little attention to quality of translations. And Chinese translation agencies are mostly fighting a price war by offering incredibly low prices.

And I personally don’t agree with the accuser’s logic, as bigger enterprises would usually pay more attention to translation quality, while higher translation prices usually mean better quality. So it’s quite natural that someone won the bid with a higher price.

From his words, I even doubt if he is a qualified translator – even though he is kind of a famous veteran in China’s translation cycle.

Anyhow, it’s necessary to remind overseas clients that many Chinese translators and translation agencies have no bottom line. Their prices could be only one tenth of their counterparts in America or Europe, and their translation quality could be worse than machine translation.

Author: Jinray Translations Company