Pictures of Le Max and iPhone 6 Plus displayed by Letv during a press event held in Beijing on Wednesday. (Photo: GT/Zhang Ye)
China's online video provider, Leshi Internet Information and Technology Corp, commonly known as Letv, on Wednesday launched its flagship smartphone Le Max at a press event, further intensifying the competition in China's smartphone market.
The launch event invitation sent by the company to the Global Times carries images that indicate the logo of its bigger rival Apple Inc is split into four pieces, triggering market speculation that the company aims to compete with Apple's wildly popular iPhones.
During the event, several executives from Letv compared 6.33-inch Le Max with Apple's 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, claiming Le Max is better in terms of design, resolution and user experience, and backing these claims with all sorts of performance tests.
Letv shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange surged by 5.87 percent, closing at 54.8 yuan ($8.84) on Wednesday.
The Letv smartphone will change current industry landscape with the advantage of its ecosystem - an integration of self-owned contents, sales channel, and hardware, Feng Xing, president of Le Mobile & Information Technology (Beijing) Co, Letv's smartphone arm, said during the event.
"Apple helped people enter the era of smartphone, while Letv will usher them into the era of ecosystem," Feng said.
Wang Jun, an industry analyst with Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International, however, thinks Letv faces an uphill battle to challenge the position of Apple.
"But comparing Le Max with iPhone is an effective way of winning instant publicity," Wang told the Global Times Wednesday.
Letv has been actively furthering its presence in the smartphone sector. On Tuesday, Jia Yueting, Letv's founder, said that Leview Mobile, an affiliate of Letv's parent company Le Holdings, has become the second-biggest shareholder of Coolpad Group, a Hong Kong-listed wireless solutions and equipment provider.
Jia said in a press release that Letv is expected to tap the distribution network and after-sales capacity of Coolpad, which also runs its self-branded smartphones in the Chinese market.
The launch of Le Max comes on the heels of its rivals Huawei and Meizu, which launched similar smartphones on Tuesday, signifying fierce competition in the country's smartphone market which IDC said in May contracted in the first quarter for the first time in six years.
It is hard to tell which players will survive in the end, as Chinese smartphones do not have distinctive features, said Wang.
"Though a latecomer, Letv may have the chance to gain a position among the pantheon of great smartphones with its edge in online contents," he noted.
Sporting a bezel-free display and fingerprint sensor technology, Le Max is priced at 2,999 yuan for 32GB and available from July 7.
