LeEco became a known brand among smartphone users thanks to handsets such as the LeEco Le, Le Max, and the newly introduced LeEco Le 2 and Le Max 2, but more recently it became evident (for westerners, at least) that the Chinese company aims to cover many more industries aside from the mobile market. LeEco even has an interest in the automotive industry and it was earlier this month when the company teased their first autonomous electric car called “LeSee”. But while LeEco already enjoys a lot of popularity in China, the company now aims to make a bigger name for itself in the U.S. To achieve this, LeEco recently opened its new headquarters in Silicon Valley.
On Thursday, LeEco cut the ribbon off its new headquarters in San Jose, California, where roughly 250 employees currently operate. The HQ is ~800,000 square foot and reportedly, it will accommodate about 800 employees by the end of the year. The goal is for LeEco to be able and bring more products to the U.S. market with ease, with LeEco Chief Administrative Officer, Shawn Williams, adding that “customers will never again settle for less”. As yet it’s unclear what type of products will be prioritized to arrive in the U.S. market. LeEco is an industry giant operating many businesses, from mobile to broadcasting, cloud computing, and smart TVs just to name a few. We already mentioned LeEco’s goals to surpass Tesla in the electric car industry, but it’s interesting to note that LeEco also sells bicycles in China, so in other words, it looks like LeEco is the one who doesn’t want to “settle for less”. In fact, the company plans to create a huge end-to-end ecosystem covering cloud platforms, applications, and devices, and evidently, the new U.S.-based headquarters should help in achieving that.
LeEco was founded in 2004 by Jia Yueting, and up until now the company released a total of four smartphones. As yet, LeEco has roughly 5,000 employees and owns more than a dozen brands and businesses, including Leie (smart hardware), Letv Music, Letv Sports, Le Auto, Letv Super TVs, Letv Cloud Computing, and LeMall just to name a few. In the year 2014, the company registered revenues of US$1.6 billion.