Lingo24 launches e-marketing drive

A 32-YEAR-OLD Aberdonian entrepreneur, whose translation firm is on track to hit sales of £6.5 million this year, is hoping to tap into the fast growing foreign language internet with the launch of an e-marketing division.

Lingo24 was set up by Christian Arno in 2001 at his parents’ home in Aberdeen but it has since expanded into a global business that is headquartered in Edinburgh and employs more than 160 people worldwide.

Its clients include the United Nations and Royal Bank of Scotland, but Arno is hoping to diversify away from pure translation services into helping firms that want to target export markets by improving their web presence in those countries.

He says the foreign language internet is growing at many times the rate of the English-language web and he sees scope for expansion by helping companies improve their rankings in foreign language search engines.

“That’s how we have grown our own business internationally and across the language barrier,” Arno said. “Now we are trying to help other companies take advantage of the foreign language internet as well.

“It’s a concept that is really important for British businesses to take advantage of because usage of the web is growing a lot faster in languages other than English.”

Studies show that individuals and corporates are more likely to buy from a website that is translated into their own language. Lingo24 has offices in London, Panama and Romania and it has just opened a translation hub in the Philippines to serve the Asia-Pacific region.