Leading Localization from Asia with EC Innovations’ Sijie Wei

Sijie Wei, Co-CEO of language services, technology, and game localization specialist EC Innovations (ECI), joins SlatorPod to talk about his new role as co-CEO and leading one of Asia’s largest LSPs with revenues exceeding USD 50m in 2023.

Sijie describes how ECI's initial focus on assisting Western blue-chip companies to enter China evolved into helping Chinese digital titans like Tencent and ByteDance extend their product offerings internationally.

Sijie emphasized the difficulties facing the Asia-Pacific market, where localization maturity in several verticals still lags behind that of the US and Europe. But as sectors like e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles develop, he sees enormous development potential.

Sijie noted that Chinese businesses want to create their own language AI solutions, which makes the industry extremely competitive. This study helps ECI apply state-of-the-art AI developments to client projects. 

https://youtu.be/PrJkZEWWCN0

In game localization, Sijie continues to see substantial growth potential. He recognizes that localizing games from China to global markets and vice versa is equally challenging due to differences in player preferences, monetization methods, and cultural contexts.

Sijie shared his thoughts on the financial environment, pointing out that the uncertainty surrounding the adoption of AI in several industries, such as localization, is the reason why market values are currently lower.

Sijie addressed the balance between AI and human localization knowledge in her conclusion, stressing that although AI can increase efficiency, human quality is still preferable in many situations.