China's voice recognition sector to exceed 3b yuan in 2014

HEFEI - The volume of China's intelligent voice recognition industry will exceed 3 billion yuan ($489 million) in 2014, 10 percent of the world market, according to a white paper released Friday.

The paper, released at the industry's annual meeting in Hefei, capital city of east China's Anhui Province, said that the industry has seen a sustained rapid growth from 2013 to 2014, hitting 1.7 billion yuan in 2013, up 95.6 percent year on year, 8.4 percent of the world market.

Intelligent voice recognition technology is generally used in nine fields: automotive electronics, culture, education, home appliances, information security, mobile Internet, mobile phones, television, and voice calls.

In practical use, for example, a user can tell a voice recognition remote control device to select a TV channel or switch on or off an air conditioner.

The "smart voice" may play important roles in national defense, anti-terrorism, privacy protection and so on, which is meaningful to the development of China's information technology, said Yang Xueshan, vice minister of industry and information technology.