Brands from China, including those that had been operating for a while, have taken inspiration from Xiaomi. Xiaomi is only a young company, but is already a near-household name (it is way beyond that in China) in every market it operates in.
In recent years, we’ve seen many more micro-brands come up, those that have looked to leverage online commerce and learn from Xiaomi’s experiences. The scale, and the sheer method that Xiaomi employ can sometimes be daunting for newcomer phone makers.
LeTV is a company that launched its first phones only a handful months back, but is already showing a lot of intent. The three phones the company launched back in the first half of 2015 are still fairly sought-after, with frequent discounts and price-cuts playing for LeTV.
What’s next for companies like Xiaomi and LeTV is their march to developed markets in the West. Xiaomi very clearly has the US and other countries on its roadmap, and has even set up an online store (which sells only accessories, no phones) for them.
LeTV, on the other hand, already has presence in the US, but as you would’ve guessed it, doesn’t sell phones there.
Brian Hui of Lemall International told Tech in Asia, “We’re a global company that doesn’t distinguish between our US and Chinese consumers, and are committed to delivering a high-quality, seamless experiences across all of our devices and platforms, regardless of location”.
While it does sound extremely cool to have a one-product-for-all approach, LeTV will (and they probably already do) realise how different the Chinese market is from other markets, let alone the US.
LeTV however seems to have created a recipe for the secret sauce it needs to make it big in the US. “Over the past year, we’ve done a lot of work to grow an elite and agile team in the US, to carry out what we call our tri-city strategy: implementation and application in Beijing, technology and innovation in Silicon Valley, and media and entertainment in Los Angeles. In the process, we’ve been adapting and fine-tuning our US efforts to address the needs of our audiences,” Hui adds.
With the smartphone market in America finally making a move to unlocked and non-contract devices, LeTV will thank its stars.
READ NEXT: LeTV Le Max Review
If you’re in the US, be sure to keep checking Lemall.com, i.e., the online store where you’ll be able to purchase LeTV products.
Well I’m not sure what their strategy is but for now the difference between them and Xiaomi outside of China seems huge to me.
You just need to go and search on aliexpress for LeTV Le1 and compare the sales with those of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 ( sort by orders ) … The price probably contributed a lot to Xiaomi’s success with the Redmi Note 2 and while I’m sure the Le1 is not a bad phone it was $100 more than the same SOC Xiaomi at launch.
Never heard of Vickmall. Cool if they’re legit though.
They are a small store but they are really serious and have good prices. I haven’t had any issue with them so far.
They seem to be. I purchased a Meizu M2 from them two weeks ago, which I should receive in the next few days. They have online chat with Skype, and were quick to answer my questions. They were one of the cheapest sellers for the M2, except for a two of three seller on Aliexpress and you can pay with PayPal.
Now you probably can but it took the Redmi Note 2 launch to get it there :). And now I already bought the Xiaomi and I’m happy with it.
Still the fact is that right now amongst the people buying from Aliexpress the Xiaomi seems to be much more popular.
I think the LeTv Le 1 is probably the better phone judging by Andi’s review and thoughts about it and reading through his review on the Note 2 the other day, it didn’t come out as good as I would have hoped. HOWEVER…
For me, even though the LeTv Le 1 can be found nice and cheap now, it’s usually for the 16gb model and this is where the Redmi Note 2 kicks the cr@p out of it because the Note 2 has a memory card slot 😉
And to my knowledge, LeTv still haven’t released the 64GB model of the Le 1?
Ah yes, now I remember, this too was a major concern for me, 16GB and no card slot. It would probably be fine but why do I need to live in fear of running out of space.
It was really a bad deal when I got my Redmi Note 2, $100 more and no card slot, no removable battery, it was a deal breaker back then … and still doesn’t sound so good even at the same price.
For some reason ( I might be wrong ) I do trust Xiaomi more to provide ROMs and updates than LeTV. Also I’m not even sure LeTV publishes the kernel source while I know Xiaomi eventually does these days.
Mi am convins un amic sa isi ia letv x600 la 200$. L am informat despre soft si despre lipsa slotului de card .Sper sa i placa -daca nu o sa ma injure…