Every time you’ve swiped the screen on a new iPhone or entered keystrokes on your Galaxy, you may have helped make Yeung Kin-man very rich.

Yeung is the founder and chief executive of Hong Kong-based Biel Crystal Manufactory (HK) Ltd., one of the biggest suppliers of cover glass to Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s two leading smartphone manufacturers. His control of the closely held business and ability to fend off competitors such as publicly traded Lens Technology Co., has given Yeung a net worth of $7.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

“In the field of cover glass, Biel has always been the market leader," said Terry Yu, a Shanghai-based analyst at IHS Technology. "Lens has been growing very quickly, but it’s still trailing behind Biel. In the short term, I can’t see any challengers to the two of them.”

Biel representatives didn’t respond to seven phone calls requesting an interview with Yeung. Press officials for Apple and Samsung declined to comment on their suppliers.


Protective Covers


Biel takes sheets of raw material supplied by glass manufacturers such as Corning Inc.-- the world’s largest supplier of raw materials for smartphone glass according to Yu - - and fashions them into protective covers. The business had $3.2 billion of revenue in 2013, Yeung said in a speech at the company’s 2014 Chinese New Year celebration. Sales increased the following year to about $4 billion, according to state-owned financial newspaper Securities Daily.

He owns Biel with Lam Wai Ying, according to corporate filings with the Hong Kong Companies Registry. The two are identified as husband and wife on a local government website for the Chinese city of Huizhou, where Biel has a factory. Yeung owns 51 percent of the business and Ying has 49 percent, according to the filings. The index credits the entire fortune to Yeung as Biel’s founder and chief executive officer, making him Hong Kong’s 10th-richest person.


Watches, Smartphones


Yeung entered the manufacturing business almost three decades ago supplying glass covers for watches. He began making smartphone cover glass after he noticed that the plastic screen on his mobile phone scratched easily, according to a report in Chutian Metropolis Daily earlier this year. That prompted him to recommend the use of glass to smartphone manufacturers, the newspaper said.

He started manufacturing the covers after receiving an order of 1 million screens for the Motorola Razr, according to the Hong Kong Economic Journal. He eventually produced 100 million units for the phone maker, the newspaper said. The company snagged Apple as a customer when the first-generation iPhone was released in 2007, according to the report.

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