LeEco carpet bombs SF with smart devices, connected ecosystem visions

LeEco, a Chinese company, carpet bombed an event on Wednesday in San Francisco, a city in northern California on the U.S. west coast, with smart consumer electronics and its visions for devices connected with Internet.

The event in the Innovation Hanger at Palace of Fine Arts was for LeEco to launch its ecosystem model in the United States, where the company opened its North American headquarters last April and announced a deal worth 2 billion U.S. dollars to acquire Vizio Inc., a manufacturer of TV and other electronic devices in July.

According to Mr. YT Jia, founder, chairman and chief executive officer, and a parade of U.S.-based LeEco officials, the 12-year-old company will break boundaries between screens to deliver content and services on a wide array of smart devices connected with Internet, including smartphones, TVs, smart bikes, virtual reality and electric self-driving vehicles.

"We have created a new business model that will lead the next era of technology," Jia told an audience of about 1,500 media representatives, analysts, industry partners and consumers. "We are disrupting several categories and changing the paradigm by breaking down barriers and boundaries between industries and screens to create a better experience and more value for both individuals and industries."

While content has been at the heart of LeEco's vision since its inception in 2004, as it has amassed more than 5,000 movies and 100,000 TV episodes, and attracted more than 50 million daily active users and over 730 million monthly active users in China, it has partnered with top content providers, such as Lionsgate, MGM, Showtime, Vice Media, Awesomeness TV and A+E, to bring its content platform to TV viewers and smart phone users in the United States.

At the 2-hour event, it introduced a new Le phone series and a new line of smart TVs, the largest with a 85-inch screen.

In addition, LeEco said it plans to bring a smart bike, called LeEco Super Bike, that has an Android operating system to provide security, connectivity and smart riding experience, and a virtual reality (VR) headset, called ExploreVR, to the U.S. market.

The company also announced that it would offer U.S. consumers on its LeMail.com shopping site a membership program called EcoPass, which combines customer service with special pricing, sales events, unlimited movie viewing and limited cloud storage for photos and videos.

Although still in its prototype stage, an electric car with self-driving features, called LeSEE Pro, was brought to the venue for display together with smart phones, TVs, bike and VR headset.

"Our global vision for a connected ecosystem where great content can be enjoyed on a range of devices that are disruptively priced is what fuels our global expansion," said Richard Ren, president of LeEco North America. "Following our success in China, we expanded to India last year and Russia in September. Today, we are pleased to officially launch in the U.S." Enditem