iFLYREC Hits 100 Million Users Without Ads, Defying SaaS Norms

In a market where Chinese apps often rely on aggressive advertising to monetize, iFLYTEK's iFLYREC has achieved a rare feat: surpassing 100 million users while maintaining a strict "three-no" policy that bans splash-screen ads, in-app ads, and share-based promotions. The speech-to-text SaaS product has instead built its growth on subscription revenue, delivering over 60% gross profit growth for three consecutive years with annual renewal rates above 50% for new users.

The achievement marks iFLYREC as iFLYTEK's second product to cross the 100-million user threshold, following its input method app. This growth trajectory is particularly noteworthy given the product's evolution from non-real-time transcription services between 2015 and 2019 to its current real-time subscription model launched in 2019.

What sets iFLYREC apart isn't just its user base but its technological progression. In 2023, it became the first iFLYTEK product to integrate the company's Spark large language model, introducing a "one-click transcript-to-draft" feature that transforms raw transcriptions into structured documents. The app later added an AI-powered adaptive meeting summary mode that customizes outputs based on user notes, inserted images, and highlighted key points.

This technological sophistication has enabled iFLYREC to penetrate high-profile use cases that demand reliability and accuracy. The service has provided real-time Cantonese-to-Mandarin subtitles for the Miss Hong Kong livestream, real-time captioning for the CCTV Spring Festival Gala online broadcast, and AI-powered captioning services for Hong Kong's Legislative Council. These deployments represent a strategic shift toward "SaaS + hardware + services" solutions that combine software capabilities with physical infrastructure.

The product's consistent ranking as the top speech-to-text app across major app stores suggests that users are willing to pay for quality transcription services without the friction of advertising. This contrasts sharply with the typical Chinese app ecosystem, where free services often come at the cost of intrusive ads and data harvesting.

iFLYREC's success demonstrates that in specialized SaaS categories, particularly those serving professional and enterprise needs, users may prefer direct payment models over ad-supported alternatives. The 50%+ renewal rate indicates strong product-market fit and suggests that once users adopt the service for critical workflows like meeting documentation or live event captioning, they find sufficient value to continue subscribing.

As iFLYTEK continues to expand its AI portfolio, iFLYREC's growth provides a template for monetizing advanced language models through practical, high-value applications rather than relying on the advertising economics that dominate much of the consumer software market.