Software that aims to win user hearts

On the one hand, the reach in some of these markets is in accordance with the country's Belt and Road Initiative, explained Zhang. On the other, WPS products and the brand name are better accepted by users in emerging markets, especially India and Indonesia, which are seeing their internet market expand rapidly, he said.

But it does not mean that WPS has totally steered clear of the more mature markets in the United States and Europe. To differentiate itself from Microsoft Office, WPS has focused on the Office suite designed for Mac, subscription services such as PDF toolkit and template services, and other value-added services.

"The success in the Chinese market over the past few years has prepared us financially to explore the overseas markets. The strong economic base has become our competitive edge so that we can take our time to realize our goals. We will not confront our competitors directly or wage any price war. We only want to win the hearts of consumers with our products," he said.

To be sure, there are differences regarding the user habits in different regions. While China has leapfrogged the development of mobile internet over the past few years, users in the Western markets are still using the functions which are prevalent in the PC age. Therefore, such functions are added to products launched in some of the overseas markets but cannot be found in the Chinese version.

Such subtle variations were not provided from day one. "We thought introducing our products to overseas was just a snap. We thought we could hire a translation company and make different language versions and that's it. But soon we found that our understanding was totally wrong. The cultural differences and complexity in each market mean that you cannot just leave a translated version of your software on the official website and go," said Zhang.

"International companies in a real sense have invested a lot of time and resources to explore markets one by one. It is also one of the reasons that we have started with markets with easier access."

In this sense, help from Google was indispensable. WPS took small steps in the overseas markets as its mobile versions of its Office applications were available on the Google Play app store.

"We are much stronger in product development than in management, especially lacking management experience in overseas markets. The Google team works as a mentor to us, solving problems regarding our software per se and building the ecosystem. Many detailed things such as commercialization and subscription are all explained by them."

Thirty-one years after its founding, Kingsoft Office successfully listed on the technology-focused STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Nov 18. For Zhang, the company's ultimate goal should be to grow into a truly international company with world-class products.

"We don't have a specific timeline for it. We can spend another 30 years to realize that goal," he said.