It got worse. A month later, Jia shared a six-page memo with employees warning that the company had expanded too fast, calling for an organizational restructuring to eliminate "big-company disease."Last month, LeEco reportedly delayed its payroll for some US employees. Flashy hires like Todd Pendleton, the man behind Samsung's successful "The Next Big Thing" campaign, had left the company. LeEco also scrapped its $2 billion deal to buy US TV maker Vizio, citing "regulatory headwinds."On Saturday, Jia stepped down as CEO of Leshi, but would keep his focus on the unlisted LeEco businesses.
"We are currently on a difficult path," he said in a memo to employees, "Thank you everyone for sticking with us all this time."LeEco urban tribal pattern 9 - aztec - concrete and wood iphone case found out, as many other companies have, that it's difficult to sell products directly to consumers through your website if your name isn't Amazon, Compounding the challenge was the fact that no one had heard of LeEco, so it's not like consumers knew to look for its products, Beyond the cuts, LeEco will shut down the engineering operations in San Diego, concentrating its team in San Jose, The company hasn't said whether it will sell the property it acquired from Yahoo..
Sadly, the bikes will never get sold. A LeEco spokeswoman said the company still believes its products are competitive through this year, although there was no comment on whether it would continue to release new gadgets. Jia's grand vision of LeEco in the US has been scaled down to a niche player. The hope is that LeEco can push televisions that feature the Chinese programming the company already produces or has the rights to broadcast in its home market, which may appeal to Chinese-speaking consumers in the US. In addition to its TVs, LeEco sells the U4 set-top box, which costs $149.99 for two years of access to Chinese programming.
IDC analyst Dong estimates that there are roughly 4 million such households in the country, But even he is skeptical that LeEco can target that niche market, given the specific advertising and distribution needs, "Even if you cater to smaller portion of the market, you still have to put money into it so they recognize the brand," Dong said, Originally published May urban tribal pattern 9 - aztec - concrete and wood iphone case 23 at 10:30 a.m, PT, Updated May 24 at 7:00 a.m, PT: To include background on the Vizio deal, Virtual reality 101: CNET tells you everything you need to know about VR..
CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition. Little-known LeEco cuts 70 percent of its US workforce as its lofty goals couldn't match the reality of a tough market. It was a chilly January night in Las Vegas as Danny Bowman and I hopped on our LeEco smart bikes in a dim parking lot of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. The chief revenue officer of LeEco -- an enigmatic Chinese company positioned as one part Samsung, one part Netflix and many parts unbridled ambition -- had spent the last 30 minutes up in one of MGM's pricey Skyline suites trying to convince me about the legitimacy of the company's US strategy.