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Alice Yan

The rags-to-riches story of how Zhou Qunfei rose from humble beginnings in a poor village in central China to become a highly successful businesswoman has been an inspiration for countless migrant workers across the country.
The 56-year-old founder of the touch-screen maker Lens Technology is estimated to have a net worth of 110 billion yuan (US$16 billion).
She claimed second place in the 2025 Hurun Female Entrepreneurs Ranking List issued by Hurun Institute.
Zhou first came to attention in China in 2015 as the country’s richest woman when her company listed in Shenzhen while she was worth 50 billion yuan.

Her journey began in utter destitution.
Born in a village in Xiangxiang, Hunan province, in 1970, Zhou’s mother died when she was five years old and her father became partially blind and lost a finger in an industrial accident.
As a young child, Zhou had to plant vegetables, raise pigs and collect plastic waste to earn money for the family. She had to drop out two years after entering secondary school.
Aged 15, Zhou went to Shenzhen in the southern province of Guangdong to look for work.

She first worked as a security guard on a construction site, then as an assembly line worker at a glass factory.
Zhou used all her spare time self-studying accounting and computers.
She was soon promoted to become the manager of her workshop and later the whole factory.
In 1993, Zhou set up her own business with six relatives by renting a three-bedroom flat.
First, they engaged in silk screen printing before turning to watch glass manufacturing.
She and a partner established Lens Technology in Shenzhen in 2003 to focus on mobile phone glass screens. Her partner then quit, leaving the company on the brink of bankruptcy.
In 2004, the then mobile phone giant Motorola asked Zhou if her company could deliver a type of glass which would not shatter when falling from a height of one metre.
At the time, no glassmaker in the world was able to do that.

Zhou won the deal after she and her team researched around-the-clock for months and made a breakthrough in the technology.
Zhou’s fate was changed in 2007 when her company began supplying Apple.
Since then, Lens Technology has earned the nickname “supply chain king of Apple”.
In 2015, the company listed in Shenzhen, swelling Zhou’s wealth but also bringing controversy.
Rumours began to circulate that Zhou was once a mistress of a married man and that she used his money to fund her start-up.
She told Jiemian News that she had to exert a lot of effort to scotch the rumours.
“I am not qualified to be a high-profile person,” she said.
“I think it is important not to get carried away when you are successful and not to let yourself feel gloomy when times are bad.”
Zhou said her father died in 2001, but she always kept a book he gave her written by a writer from the former Soviet Union.
“My father told me not to be afraid of hardship and to always be strong like the protagonist in that novel,” she said.

Zhou said she is aware of the risks caused by relying on a sole customer; Apple contributes to the bulk of her company’s revenue.
For the past few years, her company has been exploring other industries such as cars and robots.
In July, Lens Technology listed in Hong Kong.
“From a poor rural girl, to an assembly line worker, to running a company successfully to listing, I have achieved all these not because of good luck, but due to my refusal to concede defeat,” said Zhou.
“Right now, I am still fighting, not for myself, but for ordinary people who are struggling in the grass roots of society,” she added.
“She is awesome. A self-made billionaire without any privileged background,” said one internet user.
While another person said: “I worked at her factory for several years during the 2010s. My hometown and I are grateful for Boss Zhou.”


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Woman who began life in destitution goes from factory floor to US$16 billion fortune; says success comes from ‘refusal to accept defeat’


Woman who began life in destitution goes from factory floor to US$16 billion fortune; says success comes from ‘refusal to accept defeat’.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Woman who began life in destitution goes from factory floor to US$16 billion fortune; says success comes from ‘refusal to accept defeat’

Woman who began life in destitution goes from factory floor to US$16 billion fortune; says success comes from ‘refusal to accept defeat’