Language pairs handled by language service providers increased by 43 percent in the last two years. GALA (2008)     The hispanic purchasing power was $700 million in 2004 and is expected to reach almost $1 trillion by 2010. HispanTelligence (2004)     Number of words translated on average every day by GALA members: 16,736,100.00 GALA (2008)     More than 77 percent of GALA member companies have increased their number of employees in the last year. GALA (2008)     About 28 percent of Europeans speak two foreign languages. Eurobarometer (2008)     74% of multinational enterprises believe it is either important or most important to achieve increased revenues from global operations. CSU Chico (2007)     52% of internet consumers will buy ONLY at websites where the information is presented in their language. Common Sense Advisory (2006)     The Journal of Machine Translation was first launched in 1954. TAUS     In 1987, the world's first instantaneous translation of speech by a computer was demonstrated by British Telecom's Research Laboratories. TAUS     The US hispanic population was 40.4 million people in 2004 and is expected to reach almost 60.4 million by 2020. Pew Research Report (2005)     In the state of California, 19 million people speak English, 8 million people speak Spanish, and 800,000 people speak Chinese. MLA (2005)     The first article on machine translation appeared in The New York Times May 31, 1949. TAUS     Forty-two percent of the global online population will be in Asia in 2011. JupiterResearch (2008)     The EU has 23 official languages and three alphabets. European Commission     The leading global websites now support an average of 35 languages. John Yunker     A total of 1,600 people work for the EU directorate general for translation, making it the largest EU department. guardian.co.uk     In 1977, TAUM Méteo began using machine translation for Canadian weather bulletins English to French 45K words a day with little post-editing. TAUS     More than 86 percent of GALA companies have increased work volume in the last year. GALA (2008)         Looking forward to 2011, India’s online population will be significantly higher than will that of any European country. JupiterResearch (2008)     In the past year, work volume has increased by an average 10-19 percent among GALA members. GALA (2008)     By 2009, Priceline will derive less than 30 percent of its revenue from the US; Google less than one half. JupiterResearch (2008)     In 1996, Systran began offering free translation of small texts on the web. TAUS     In 1978, the European Commission began using Systran machine translation technology. TAUS     In the last two years, forty-two percent of GALA members have accommodated a new language pair never handled before.  GALA (2008)     Due to EU expansion into Eastern Europe, Russian is now spoken as a second language by 5% of EU citizens. guardian.co.uk     During the next five years, the US will add about 20 million Internet users.  Meanwhile, Western Europe will gain 40 million, and China 90 million. JupiterResearch (2008)     The growth of the language services industry is shown in the average 10-19 percent growth in employees in 2007-2008. GALA (2008)     There are 206 million native speakers of Arabic, making it the 5th most widely spoken language in the world The Ethnologue     Thirty-seven percent of all large US companies have not translated their website content into any other language. JupiterResearch (2008)     Hispanics in the USA are 67% Mexican origin, 14.3% Central or Latin American, 8.5% Puerto Rican, 3.7% Cuban, and 6.6% from other origins. U.S. census (2000)     Software marketed in France must be in French. CSU Chico (2007)     Fifty-six percent of Europeans speak at least one language in addition to their mother tongues. Eurobarometer (2008)     Companies should start with English on their websites and then move to Japanese with its 13.2% of world electronic GDP. Common Sense Advisory (2007)     While legal issues restrain 80% of companies when entering a new market, only 11% see it as a substantial barrier. CSU Chico (2007)     Nearly 86 percent of translation buyers outsource most or all of their translation needs to external language services providers. Common Sense Advisory (2007)     65% of multinational enterprises believe localization is either important or very important for achieving higher company revenues. CSU Chico (2007)     eBay has a presence in 39 markets around the world and is available in 30 languages eBay (2008)     In Brazil, imported software must be supported by hardware developed locally. CSU Chico (2007)     In 1997, AltaVista Babelfish were launched on the Internet using Systran, with 500K requests a day. TAUS     In late 2007, the European Commission made its multilingual translation memory in 22 languages accessible to the public in 22 languages. European Commission     The total of online users in China in 2009 will be 234 million. JupiterResearch (2008)     The market for outsourced language services was over US $9 billion worldwide in 2006, growing at 7.5 percent per year to US $12billion in 2010. Common Sense Advisory (2006)     Sixty-eight percent of GALA members have seen an increase in customers from Europe. GALA (2008)     In 1960, the US Air Force used IBM-developed Mark II language translator to translate Russian to English. TAUS     The number of pages translated for the EU Commission in 2004 was 1,270,586 for the total number of languages. EU Commission     There are six languages that make up 88 percent of the "global wallet" for online spending. Common Sense Advisory (2007)     The average number of languages for the top 10 global brands is almost 30. JupiterResearch (2008)     Germany will be the largest European market in 2011, with 58 million online users, followed by the UK with 46 million. JupiterResearch (2008)     The earliest attempts at translation technology date back to efforts in the 1950s to automate the translation of Russian to English. TAUS     The EU Commission is the biggest translation consumer within the EU institutions. EU Commission     The EU enlargement in 2004 increased its official languages from 11 to 20. European Commission     A share of 35 percent of Romanians consider that their household’s purchasing power has increased over the last five years. Eurobarometer (2008)