Chinese-made app transmits multilingual audio across the world

Screenshots show the page layout of CastBox on a mobile phone. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Believe it or not, a popular Arabic podcast app is entirely made by a group of Chinese speaking engineers.

CastBox is a mobile app that provides audio content, covering both entertainment and education about daily scenarios.

The app was recently listed among the top trending apps and most entertaining by Google Play.

It contains more than 340,000 podcasts and 70,000 radio stations, providing services to subscribers from more than 70 countries and regions in the world.

According the app's co-founder, Wang Xiaoyu, the app was originally inspired by Apple's iTunes Podcast, which was released back in 2005.

"We want to seize the opportunities as there were no high-profile podcast apps launched on Android platform," Wang said.

Wang explained that CastBox has targeted overseas markets since its creation.

Google has supported the app from the underlying development stage, launch, advertising and ultimately, to become profitable.

Wang said the company uses Firebase, a platform with tools and infrastructure designed to help developers build mobile applications, process and store data, and distribute content.

The company also uses AdWords, an online advertising service in which advertisers pay to display brief advertising copy to web users, to promote the app and uses AdMob to monetize and generate profits.

"Google's adaptive support for our app's layout under the right-to-left writing system helps us to reach more Middle East users," Wang said.

Wang, who has previously worked at Google Japan, employs around 20 China-based workers, most of them are web engineers.

Wang said the company will not only provide podcasts to users, but also produce more radio, audio books and other audible content next year.

"We'll further take advantage of machine learning technologies to enhance our intelligent content recommendation system for each individual user," she added. "We'll also invest more R&D on the expansion of CastBox's distribution channels, such as in smart home or autonomous driving sectors."

Scott Beaumont (right), president of Google Greater China, and Ben Galbraith, head of product and developer relations at Google's developer product group, speak to the press during the Google Developers Day held on December 8, 2016 in Beijing. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Scott Beaumont, president of Google Greater China, said it is endeavoring to encourage mobile innovation and startups by developers, adding that Google is helping Chinese developers to explore high-quality apps and go global with its innovative technologies.

He made the comment during the latest Google Developers Day held on Thursday in Beijing.

Ben Galbraith, head of product and developer relations at Google's developer product group, said the nation's developers were different from others in the rest of the world.

"Chinese developers have been among the fastest to embrace global development and the innovation here is very distinctive."

He said that he was amazed by how the technically efficient Chinese developers are at pushing the boundaries.

He said Google would spare no effort to provide diverse, innovative platforms for developers, such as Firebase, virtual reality platform Daydream and open source platform TensorFlow.

Currently, three websites in the Chinese domain have been launched by Google (developers.google.cn/firebase.google.cn/developer.android.google.cn) that aim to make it easier for local developers to learn more about Google's services and technologies, as well as develop new applications.