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Jia Yueting and Lei Ding showcase company’s self-driving car LeSEE. The company is also funding US based Faraday Future.

At a glitzy event in Beijing earlier this week, filled with fans and international media, Chinese internet and technology company LeEco showcased its new products including smartphones, a TV and its very own LeSee car.

LeEco, founded in November 2004 by Jia Yueting and Liu Hong, has headquarters in Beijing with regional headquarters in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, and claims to employ over 10,000 people.

In China, its TVs and smartphones come bundled with access to LeEco’s content including television shows, live sports matches, plus the ability to book tickets for sports events as well. For LeEco’s founder Jia Yueting, the vision is that their ecosystem will essentially become one of the leading ones in the world.

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“On April 14, we held the first free-hardware day in China, when we had sales for our smartphones, TVs on our website. We believe that the world is heading for an ecosystem era, where hardware will be irrelevant and rather users will be more interested in the content, value they can get from a device,” announced Jia Yueting at the recent launch event.

LeEco recently launched Le 2, the successor to Le 1s which was launched just few months back here in India

He claims LeEco is challenging the competition by focussing on ‘ecosystem’ rather than hardware specs. The ‘ecosystem’ buzzword is, of course, nothing new. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this is Apple, which has its own OS powering its hardware, be it mobile, tablets, MacBooks or TVs, along with its range of services like Apple Music, iTunes, and more.

Interestingly, LeEco’s launch presentation was peppered with potshots at Apple, especially at the latter’s hardware, mocking the Cupertino giant for sticking with what LeEco’s CEO thought were outdated specs. And yes, there were references to the other big player from China: Xiaomi.

LeEco recently entered India with its budget Le 1s and the high-end Le Max smartphone. The Le 1s at a price of Rs 10,999 offers high-end specs and puts the company in direct competition with players like Xiaomi, Lenovo, all of who are taking the Indian market seriously given that China as a smartphone market has all but saturated.

Must See: LeEco Le 2, Le Max 2 announced in China: All you need to know about the smartphones

In India, LeEco has tied up with Eros International for video on demand and Yupp Tv in for TV channel streaming. At its event, the company unveiled a system where a user can run nine live-streams in one go, be it on mobile or TV. The system could soon be launched in India, perhaps when the company introduces its new Le 2 or Le Max 2 smartphones in the country.

LeEco claims it has filed over 67 patents for these live-streams and wants to see its EUI work across devices including its future ‘Le Super Cars’.

In fact, LeEco has some grand plans for its ‘ecosystem’ if the latest announcement is anything to go by. The company, which has tied up with Faraday Future and Aston Martin, showcased a new concept car called Le See, an electric vehicle, which LeEco claims will also offer self-driving capabilities. But it will take some time to hit the road.

Quizzed about licensing and manufacturing, the company said it was still working on its application to the Chinese government, and that it will work with major OEMs in China to manufacture this car.

While the car is still an ambitious idea by all standards, LeEco does plan to go big on the content side of things in India as well. At the end of March, LeEco announced plans to invest over $10 million in setting up Content Distribution Networks (CDNs) in 10 cities in India by the end of 2016.

LeEco says that CDN/cloud infrastructure will help provide content in linear channel, live events, and video on demand for both the mobile and TV segment, adding a unique value to its products. “We plan to tie up with providers to deliver third-party content and are also evaluating producing LeEco’s own local content,” Atul Jain, COO of LeEco India had said at the time of its announcement.

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And while content is clearly the king in LeEco’s vision, questions around hardware remain. For instance as a member of the Chinese press pointed at the event, the quality of after sales services remain an issue and for many users that is the bigger challenge when buying products from a new player.

LeEco says that it is working to improve after sales. In India, the company claims to have tied up with over 500 service centres, though unlike other players such as Xiaomi, Lenovo, etc it does not have exclusive LeEco service centres yet.

For LeEco, the approach to its products its clear: bundle them with content to add a value that the rivals can’t offer. Now to see how soon it can roll out the same in India and whether users find it interesting at all.

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