LeTV announces Tencent tie-up

Beijing-based LeTV Information Technology Co Monday announced a strategic tie-up with Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's largest Internet company by market value, in hopes of increasing the sales of its smart televisions.

Tencent has a large user base and strong brand influence across the country, which will contribute to the promotion of LeTV's newly released smart TV, said Liang Jun, a vice president with LeTV, at a press conference held in Beijing Monday.

Under the partnership, Tencent's popular instant messaging service WeChat and online gaming applications will be available on LeTV's Super TV, and starting from Thursday, LeTV's Super TV X60 will be sold on Tencent's online shopping platform yixun.com, according to a press release LeTV e-mailed to the Global Times Monday.

Liang Hongsheng, vice president of Yixun, said at the press conference that he expects 5,000 sets to be ordered in the first hour after LeTV's smart TV is released on yixun.com.

This is the first time LeTV will sell smart TVs on a third-party online platform, largely because the company is in urgent need of expanding its sales channels in response to fierce competition in the domestic smart TV market, said Xu Hao, an industry analyst with iResearch.

"LeTV needs to strengthen its distribution ability, since in addition to traditional TV makers, its rival Xiaomi Technology Co has also entered this promising market. TV makers have strong offline sales channels while Xiaomi has built up significant expertise in online marketing by selling its self-branded smartphones on its own," said Xu.

Liang Jun said that the market has been crowded with smart TVs since the beginning of September and in the next three months the competition will be more intense, though he anticipates that the product will sell well via Yixun.

Online video provider iQiyi in partnership with TCL, Xiaomi Technology and e-commerce company Alibaba have also launched smart TVs this month.