China's own Steve Jobs set to lead voice technology sector

When he enrolled at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1990, Liu Qingfeng's only expectation was to learn how to repair TVs. He certainly did not expect to become a billionaire executive of a listed company: China's very own Steve Jobs.

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Liu's company iFLYTEK, China's equivalent of the voice technology company Nuance, is known for its voice technology products, including Voice Touch, a competitor of Apple's Siri system.

The app translates Chinese spoken words into text, allowing users to send messages, call friends and post on social media platforms.

Liu's company holds about a 70 percent market share in China and is used by Chinese messaging services including Tencent QQ and Sina Weibo, as well having a firm footing in the overseas markets.

"Apple outperforms its peers with touch screen experience. We can be the best in voice technology," Liu said.

The company' s combined valuation surpassed 21 billion yuan (3.4 billion U.S. dollars) as of Monday, with Liu holding a 8.72 percent stake in the firm, trailing its largest shareholder China Mobile, the country' s top telecommunications operator.

With more than 3,000 employees, the company saw business revenue surpass 1.25 billion yuan and net profit top 279 million yuan in 2013.

Liu's company has been in the speech technology field for more than a decade. The company released the industry's first spoken language interpretation system, which aimed to help more people understand China by breaking through the language barrier.

The multilingual intelligent oral language evaluation system developed by the company has been used in the National Putonghua (Mandarin) Proficiency Test and the oral English tests at some Chinese universities.