LeEco CEO Jia Yueting explained the company’s ecosystem for the first time at the China (Shenzhen) IT Summit last Sunday. Sharing is key for LeEco to expand and break the pattern of BAT dominance.
Jia said sharing in its broad sense should cover economy, resources, capacity, capital and finally value. Value-sharing is the linchpin of LeEco’s “ecological sharing” strategy.
“Coexistence, win-win and sharing are the core concepts of LeEco’s ecological economy,” Jia said. “Ecological sharing should be comprehensive, not only with customers but also in business.”
LeEco’s ecosystem covers seven areas including internet technology, content, LePar, smartphones, sports, vehicles and internet finance. Jia announced LeSports had landed RMB eight billion (USD 1.2 billion) in Series B financing, bringing the company’s valuation to RMB 21.5 billion.
But the Chinese internet industry is still dominated by Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT). Startups in this field are destined to be beat, acquired or unified by BAT at their birth. Clearly, LeEco is not able to confront them at present.
“LeEco is not aiming to surpass BAT, nor iPhone, Amazon or Tesla,” said Jia. “Our relationship with BAT is ecological sharing in various dimensions, rather than competition.”
As part of its ecological sharing strategy, LeEco invested in Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad and Chinese electronics company TCL in September and December 2015 respectively.
“LeEco wants to help these traditional hardware makers transform into ecological internet companies, and bring more value to the industry,” Jia said.
(Top photo from Jia Yueting’s WeChat public account)
