Surge in voice recording projects from China

[jaemu]

Hello fellow freelancers,

I am a young translator and voice actor and this is my first community post on Upwork in over 3 years on this platform! Internationality is the fundamental criterion I am building my career on, so I find Upwork a marvelous thing.

I am also very interested in business and economics and would like to ask whether other professionals on this platform have also noticed that there has been a neverending stream of 'quick, simple voice recording jobs' always coming from different cities in China for the last 1 1/2 - 2 years or so. I suppose their objective is the development of a voice assistant and it has gone so far that I in fact encountered a Chinese woman on a campus looking for native speakers when I was in Ireland. I always reject these jobs on Upwork but couldn't help but sit down with her and do her tasks when I met her - out of pure curiosity. Her company was - as far as I had understood - developing a navigation software for the automotive sector.

There are tons of these jobs on Upwork. Whenever I get a notification on my phone, there is like a 20% chance that it's one of those projects. These jobs come from China in 95% of the cases. What's your take on this? Why are they collecting so much voice data in different languages? Are Chinese companies simply trying to compete with Chinese company iFlytek? Are they iFlytek? Is it something else?

I'd love to hear your opinions and - if possible - experiences. Thanks everyone and have a good one!

Jan

[07a717c0]

Hi Yang, I am very interested in your question about the increase of Chinese projects on upwork. I am a Chinese college student. The time you asked the question was three years ago. I'm sure you saw what happened in those three years. China's new energy automobile industry, Huawei mobile phones, 5G, etc. In short, China is a country with great potential and a reliable partner. The Chinese nationality and traditional culture make us worth your cooperation.My major is tourism management. If you are interested in this market in China, we can talk about it. You are very welcome to visit China. I also wish you a pleasant exchange in China.

[bf97c28c]

Hi Jan. It's an interesting  topic. Maybe they prepare an artificial choir? 🤔