By Salma El-Sakka
Zhou Qunfei, a 56-year-old former factory worker who dropped out of school, has topped the Hurun Richest Women in China 2026 list with an estimated fortune of 127 billion yuan (about £14.20 billion). The founder of Lens Technology, a major supplier of touchscreen glass to Apple, Samsung and other tech giants, reclaimed the title she first held in 2015.
Wealth surge and ranking
Her wealth increased 15 per cent over the past year, placing her marginally ahead of Hansoh Pharmaceutical founder Zhong Huijuan, whose fortune is estimated at 124 billion yuan (approximately £13.86 billion). Hurun, a global research institute, notes that its women's list separates individual wealth from family wealth, unlike the main China Rich List.
From factory floor to billionaire
Born in 1970 in Hunan province, Zhou left school as a teenager and moved to Shenzhen, where she worked in a watch-glass factory earning about $1.20 a day. At age 23 she established her own glass-processing workshop, teaching herself advanced screen-printing and curved-glass manufacturing techniques. She later co-founded Lens Technology, which became a key supplier for Apple's first iPhones in 2007. Apple accounted for nearly half of Lens Technology's main business revenue between 2011 and the first half of 2014, and the company's Shenzhen stock market listing in March 2015 propelled Zhou to the top of China's women's wealth rankings.
Challenges and diversification
Zhou's fortune suffered a sharp decline in 2018 amid the US-China trade war and concerns about Apple's sales. The company subsequently diversified beyond smartphones into electric vehicles, artificial intelligence-related hardware and robotics. It secured a second listing in Hong Kong in July 2025 to raise funds for expansion, though it remains vulnerable to consumer electronics demand and currency fluctuations.
High-profile recognition
Zhou's prominence was underscored at a state banquet hosted by President Xi Jinping for US President Donald Trump in Beijing on 14 May 2026, where she was seated between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. At the 2026 Pujiang Innovation Forum, she said the AI era requires manufacturers to focus on sustained innovation across entire systems, not just computing power and algorithms.
Broader trends
According to Hurun, 65 per cent of the 50 richest women in China are self-made, with their collective wealth reaching a record 1.93 trillion yuan (about £216.29 billion). Zhou and her husband's combined wealth ranked them 33rd on China's overall Hurun Rich List, which was topped by ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming with an estimated 670 billion yuan (£75 billion).
