Xue Yongfeng, a senior analyst at Analysys International, told China Daily that the success of Cheetah Mobile comes from being in the right place at the right time. "When the company plans to explore the overseas market, its major competitors focus on the domestic market, so the competition at the overseas market is not intense. Moreover, the tools application is popular among overseas users."

However, when the new Internet startups plan to go overseas, they might come across more difficulties, as their competitors have already gained most of the market share, Xue said, adding: "A new field the Internet startups may be involved in is the mobile game, which could attract huge amounts of game players overseas."

"We aim to be a big data company from the previous tool provider, making use of big data and precision marketing to realize the redistribution of global data traffic," Fu said.

In March, the company acquired the entire equity interest in Mob- Partner, a global mobile advertising company, to build one of the world's leading mobile advertising platforms. It also signed a commercial agreement with Nanigans, a provider of social and mobile advertising software and pioneer in advertising automation software.

However, pioneering in an enterprise is naturally never plain sailing. The biggest challenge Fu has come across is the merger between the two companies, Kingsoft Security and Conew Image, in 2010.

"I have never managed a company with more than 100 staff members before, but the new company has 400 to 500 employees. Moreover, at that time Kingsoft antivirus software just claimed it would be free of charge forever, so the competitors massively attacked us."

Fu also remembered one day before the company was to be listed on NYSE, stocks of Chinese companies listed in the US dropped by 7 percent, while he almost couldn't enter into the US as his visa had expired.

"The entrepreneur should face obstacles instead of avoiding them. You should think you still have the ability to make things better and make efforts to solve problems by yourself, never shuffling responsibility onto others."

Fu indicated the future layout of the company's overseas market would concentrate on developing countries, such as the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. "The European and American markets are mature, so the rapid growth is not easy to realize. But the development potential in these developing countries is huge."

Although Cheetah's core advantage is overseas, it continues to explore the domestic market. Fu introduced that their free apps could be pre-loaded into the smartphones of Xiaomi, Huawei, HTC and Asus, and the biggest advantages at the domestic market is that they participate in the industrial chain and remain committed to work with industry partners, instead of treating their competitors as enemies.

Apart from its utility apps, Fu unveiled last year a smart air filter, known as Baomi, for home use, marking the company's first foray into hardware.

Fu said the company will not fully enter the hardware domain. "Smart home devices mark the first step in our effort to unite hardware and software. What we could do is to make the hardware smarter."

Fu has a number of hobbies, such as climbing, diving, skiing and running. Although he is busy with entrepreneurship, he still spares time to be with his 7-yearold daughter.

"I have taken my daughter to Disneyland five times. We have traveled to Hong Kong, Japan, Maldives, and many cities in China. We even skied in France and the US," he said, adding he had a conference in Hawaii this month and took his daughter along.

But during Fu's first years of startup, he also had a hard time achieving the balance between his work and the family.

"My daughter refused to let me hug her when she was one year old as it was the first time I had seen her since her birth," said Fu.

For Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, China's hottest smartphone company, who once worked with Fu at Kingsoft, Fu is a determined, persistent and competent person.

According to Lei, he has met many competent people, but Fu is the only one who has real determination, perseverance and real entrepreneurship.

Contact the writers through fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn