(April 21, 2016, Beijing) On April 20, LeEco held a grand cross-category product launch event at LeSports Center in Beijing, attended by 2,600 journalists and nearly 8,000 LeFans from around the world, where it launched unprecedentedly four new devices across four industries, including Le 2 Superphones, Super TV, Le VR and self-driving Super EV. The four devices belong to four industries yet have the same brain, the same nerve center and the same bloodline and share the same ecosystem.
LeEco holds a vision of an all-compassing ecotopia empowered by constant cross-industry synergistic integrations and shared with users and partners, according to Mr. Jia, LeEco founder and CEO of LeEco at the event. “Launching four smart device products across four industries at the same time is something that no other company in the world has ever tried,” he said. “This looks like a crazy thing to do, but it is actually part of our mission to build an ecosystem world. The world we envision and are moving towards is an all-encompassing world in which our users and partners are empowered to do self-enriching things passionately. Through ecosystem economy and innovation, LeEco is ushering in the exciting ecosystem technology or ET era.”
Le 2 is the world’s first flagship phone to support the LeEco-initiated Continual Digital Lossless Audio (CDLA) standard which is accredited by the Chinese Musicians Association and takes the music industry into the continual digital lossless audio era, representing the second offensive against iPhone.
The introduction of the CDLA standard is set to start a technology-driven ecosystem-empowered revolution in the music industry. In the past, it often took several years or even decades for a new technology or material to be commercially applied and made widely available due to barriers between industries and the resistance from the vested interests. This pattern has been broken by LeEco’s vertical integration model which crosses the boundaries of innovation and takes down industry barriers to introduce and apply the latest technologies quickly. LeEco plans to promote the new standard in the industry and make the stunning audio experience available to more users.
That is one small step for LeEco, but one giant leap for the music industry. The triple industry revolution triggered by the introduction of the new technology provides eloquent testimony to the power of LeEco’s vertically integrated open closed-loop model. Leading Chinese musician Wang Feng announced that his audio equipment start-up Fiil will adopt the standard and release LeEco customized Type-C headphones.
“The introduction of the CDLA standard is an epoch-making event for the digital lossless audio experience,” said Liu Yuan, Vice President of Chinese Musicians Association. “We are glad to accredit it and hope that there will be more highly influential figures like Mr. Wang Feng and Mr. Jia Yueting to make bold audio innovations and attempts and bring even finer audio experiences to people.”
The Le 2 series is available in three variants: Le 2, Le 2Pro and Le Max2. While continuing the first generation’s popular features such as boltless exterior design, bezeless display, Type-C, and metal unibody, the second-generation series is thinner with guaranteed performance and a longer battery life and even more aesthetically appealing in every detail and as a whole. In particular, it radically does away with the 3.5mm earphone jack to provide users with the revolutionary Type-C digital lossless audio experience, breaking a paradigm that has been unchanged in the earphone industry for three decades and ushering the music phone industry into the CDLA era.
The flagship Le 2Pro, treated with a three-level anodic oxidation process for the first time in the industry, gets a new refresh with new bezeless ID 3.0 screen in infinite design to provide a
completely immersive visual experience. The three-level anodic oxidation process is the result of ten months of intensive R&D efforts with a total investment of more than RMB 20 million, including personnel, material and equipment costs. The top-of-the-line Le Max2 continues Le Max’s symmetrical design in the unique “dopamine red” created by applying color psychology insights to be emotionally appealing and pleasing to the eye. The power and volume buttons are also ingeniously designed and masterly crafted. Le Max2 is also among the world’s first smartphones to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and the world’s first commercially available metal-body phone to offer the ultrasonic fingerprint scanning feature.
The Le 2 Superphones are still offered at a negative profit for hardware as LeEco continues to promote the hardware freebie model in a bid to advocate an all-new ecosystem consumption pattern and usher the industry into the ecosystem era. A total of 1 million units of the Le 2 series will officially become available at 10:00 a.m. on April 26, with Le 2 debuting on LeMall.com and JD.com, Le 2Pro on LeMall.com and Tmall.com, and Le Max 2 on LeMall.com, JD.com and Tmall.com. Le 2 is priced at RMB 1099, Le 2Pro at 1499 and Le Max2 at 2099.
During the launch event, LeEco also unveiled its fourth-generation Super TV lineup – Super 4
X50 Pro (RMB 2,999), Super 4 X50 (RMB 2,499) and Super 4 X50 CSL Edition (RMB 2,699). All the three products are offered at prices below their mass production cost prices with subsidy from the larger LeEco ecosystem to lead the TV industry to the “negative profit for hardware” era. Jia Yueting said that Le Super TV is a true ecosystem TV, with products in each generation setting new benchmarks in specifications and performance and delivering satisfying experience and meeting operation needs in the whole lifecycle. With “super technology, comprehensive ecosystem and disrupting prices”, Super 4 X50 Pro, Super 4 X50 and Super 4 X50 CSL Edition will go on sale on LeMall.com and LePar stores on April 26.
The greatest highlight of the launch event was LeSEE’s first self-driving concept car.
LeSEE co-founder and global vice president Ding Lei gave an introduction to the LeSEE concept car which has an immediate “Internet feel”, with a super-cool ultra-size LED display on the front to display vehicle status. Positioned as an intelligent Internet car, it can drive and learn autonomously with extensive novel functions including face recognition, emotion recognition, environment recognition and road recognition and has received 804 patents worldwide. LeEco has applied for over 10,000 patents worldwide which span nine areas including phone, TV, car, EUI, VR and cloud, demonstrating the power of innovation based on ecosystem synergy.
During the event, Jia Yueting and Ding Lei demonstrated the self-driving function of the LeSEE concept car, using a Superphone to control the car remotely, with its state-of-the-art intelligent connectivity package being highly praised by the audience including VIP guests such as Liu Yonghao, chairman of New Hope Group. Liu Yonghao expressed on site his intent to become the first LeSEE owner in the world. Ding Lei disclosed that the ecosystem-empowered intelligent Internet car will be showcased at Auto China 2016 to be held five days later.
In addition, LeEco also released its latest EUI 5.8 OS which achieves historically nine-camera live video streaming, representing a giant step forward from the 3-camera live video streaming introduced at last year’s 4/14 launch event. Speaking of the 3-camera live streaming, Jia Yueting said then that it would be difficult for Apple to introduce a similar thing even within two years. “Many of our innovations bred within the LeEco ecosystem, as represented by 9-camera live streaming, multi-desktop, voice control and intelligent mobility, are unprecedented in the industry,” said Jia Yueting. “However, it’s not our intent to always go alone on the path of innovation, but we also look forward to communicating with the industry for common development. But LeEco’s model has been often misunderstood and even sneered as doing only model innovations rather than technological and product innovations. The fact is that technological innovation is an integral part of our ecosystem innovations. We look beyond competing on specific points but aim to lead the entire industry comprehensively and give utterance to our voices. Today, I throw down the gauntlet, offering as gifts a whole lineup of our top-of-the-line products, including LeSEE Super EV, to any company in the industry to deliver 9-camera live streaming or similar experience and productize and commercialize it within one year.”
The 4/20 “Ecosystem without Borders” launch event set a number of records. It achieved for the first time global VR live streaming, making it possible for over 1,000 journalists and countless LeFans, including those from North America, India and Hong Kong, to witness the event in a lifelike setting in real time. At the event, LeEco’s new VR product designed to work perfectly with Superphones also made its debut, providing a fascinating immersive experience to users.
The event was not only the world’s first VR-enabled but also the world’s first interactive live-cast launch event, introducing the all-new “live lottery” launch event model. The 4/20 launch event was broadcast live on nearly 100 online video sites and became the world’s first product launch to be live-streamed on Facebook which is one of the cloud sharing distribution channels of LeEco, setting a new record.
About LeEco:
LeEco, formerly known as Letv, is a global pioneering internet and technology company with multiple internet ecosystems across content, devices, applications and platforms. Founded in November 2004 by Jia Yueting and Liu Hong, LeEco employs more than 10,000 people and is the world’s first video company to go public with a market capitalization of more than $12 billion USD. Headquartered in Beijing, China, it has regional headquarters in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.
With disruptive innovation as the guiding principle, LeEco is engaged in myriad businesses, spanning Internet TV, video production and distribution, smart gadgets and large-screen applications to e-commerce, eco-agriculture and connected super-electric cars. The company also has one of the world’s largest content libraries which includes movies, TV dramas, entertainment shows, sports and music, which can be viewed on LeEco devices like Superphones and Super TVs. Breaking the barriers of industries, LeEco provides personalized products and services for an enhanced user experience at disruptive prices.