An Unknown Chinese Company Emerges as World’s No.3 TV Maker

TrendForce Corp, a market intelligence provider forecasted on August 1, “China-based LeEco will  rank as the No. 3 TV maker following Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, producing 14.57 million LCD TVs this year.” 

Until last year, LeEco had not posted his name in the global top 5 list. However, it boosted its production volume after taking over US-based Vizio by paying US$2 billion at the end of last month. This year, LeEco is expected to beat Chinese companies such as Hisense, TCL, so on, and even Japanese Sony.

The electronics industry saw LeEco’s taking over of Vizio would be a huge threat to Samsung and LG as LeEco will aggressively target the North American TV market, the stronghold of Samsung and LG, on the brand of Vizio, which is strong in the region’s low- and middle- priced TV market. 

LeEco, although it is still unknown in the TV market, is famous in China for a company established by chairman Jia Yueting, who is acknowledged as “Chinese Elon Musk.” Similarly to Elon Musk who established Tesla Motors, an electric car maker, with the money earned via the electric payment company PayPal Holdings, Jia Yueting established an electric car company Faraday & Future Inc., in the U.S. with the immense fortune he earned in China via LeEco. Faraday & Future has risen to be a strong challenger of Tesla Motors by unveiling an electric car trial product with maximum speed of 320㎞/hr early this year.

LeEco which launched its first business as a video service company, is rapidly expanding its business areas to TV and ·smart phone productions recently. Chairman Jia Yueting changed the company’s name into LeEco from “LeTV” early this year. It depicts his will to construct an ecosystem that puts together not only the videos but also the various IT devices.