How a factory worker became the world's richest self-made female billionaire

Smartphones have revolutionised the way we communicate - and made one woman very rich. Photo / 123RF

She's the billionaire you've probably never heard of - and the source of her wealth is sitting in your hand.

Zhou Qunfei, the world's richest self-made woman, has built an empire on the glass screens used to make Apple and Samsung smartphones, along with laptops and tablets, reports news.com.au.

With 32 factories and 90,000 employees, her products are shipped all over the globe, and she boasts a net worth of $13.5 billion ($US10.6 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

But things could have turned out very differently for the 47-year-old entrepreneur, who grew up in a poor village in central China and had to drop out of high school to support her family.

After dreaming of becoming a fashion designer, the young Zhou was a high-achiever in the classroom, but left to work in a factory at the age of 16.

"I worked from 8am to 12am, and sometimes until 2am," she told the New York Times in a rare interview.

"There were no shifts, just a few dozen people, and we all polished glass. I didn't enjoy it."

Earning the equivalent of $US1 a day, she grew tired of the monotonous and underpaid work, then took the bold step of writing to her boss to complain - and offer her resignation.

It would prove a fortuitous move, as the factory's chief executive opted to promote Zhou,

Remember the Motorola RAZR V3? It helped Ms Zhou move from watches to phones in 2003. Photo / News Limited

rather than letting her go, the

Times

reported.

The determined young woman spent several years climbing the career ladder while honing her skills and understanding of glass manufacturing, forging the beginnings of her reputation as a hands-on manager.

When she had garnered as much knowledge as possible, Zhou struck out on her own, setting up what would become the market-dominating company that would make her rich, Lens Technology.

It was 1993 and China was about to enter the post-Communist boom, when Zhou banded together with family members to invest $US3000 in a small glass polishing factory next door to her former employer.

Originally, the company made glass for watches, but would be propelled into a much more lucrative sphere by an invention that promised to revolutionise the way people communicate: the smart phone.

Lens Technology was enlisted by Motorola to design a scratch-resistant glass display for a model it was working on in 2003, the Razr V3.

Then, Apple released the iPhone in 2007 - and took the company on as its supplier. It has grown steadily but quietly, until floating on the Chinese share market in 2015, when
attention was finally drawn to the notoriously private, modest woman behind the scenes.

Zhou is said to be so devoted to quality control at her factories that she often sleeps in a poky, on-site apartment tucked away behind her office.

Churning out millions of sheets of glass that have been ground and polished to a fraction of a millimetre thickness, then treated in a bath of potassium ion to ensure they withstand the knocks and bumps of smartphone life, requires a fastidious attention to detail.

Employees know that she could turn up at any time on the factory floor, rolling up her sleeves and working alongside them - or checking their work.