LeEco Lands First US Retail Distribution, But Footprint Is Only 100 Physical Stores
LeEco landed the first U.S. retail distribution for its smartphones and TVs, the company said in a Tuesday announcement trumpeting its partnership with the new DirecTV Now streaming service (see 1611280058). But LeEco’s initial retail footprint will be small, and the bulk of its U.S. presence will remain through the LeMall.com 24/7 e-commerce store, the company said.
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Starting Thursday, LeEco phones and TVs will be available at “more than 100 retail store locations across the U.S.,” including Best Buy and unspecified “wireless dealers,” and online from Amazon and the Best Buy and Target e-commerce stores, LeEco said. LeEco launched exclusive U.S. availability of its smartphones and TVs through its LeMall online store Nov 2 (see 1611020038).
Consumers who buy a LeEco smartphone or 43-inch TV through Jan. 5 qualify for free access to DirecTV Now for three months, LeEco said. Those who buy a 55- or 65-inch LeEco TV will get six months of free access to DirecTV Now, and buyers of LeEco’s flagship 85-inch uMax85 TV with Dolby Vision get DirecTV Now free for a year, LeEco said.
It's the lowest DirecTV Now programming tier, the 60-channel "Live a Little" package worth $35 a month, that will be awarded free to qualifying LeEco customers, LeEco spokesman Greg Belloni emailed us Tuesday. That's not to be confused with the 100-channel "Go Big" programming package that will sell for $60 a month but is being promoted at $35 monthly at launch in a "limited time" offer. Belloni confirmed the tie-in with DirecTV Now was the “truly disruptive” content partnership that LeEco executives had in mind when they promised mid-October to announce for Nov. 2, to coincide with the debut of U.S. products for sale through LeMall, a content initiative that would "break all boundaries here in this country" (see 1610190058). The partnership announcement didn't materialize that day because "the lawyers got involved, so we're just waiting for final OK before we announce,” Belloni told us then.
The deal gives LeEco and Vizio TVs a short window of exclusivity for DirecTV Now functionality until partnerships with Samsung and other TV makers kick in sometime in 2017. But DirecTV Now also will be available through a wide array of Android, iOS and Amazon Fire devices from day one. LeEco in July launched a bid to buy Vizio for $2 billion cash, but the deal isn't complete (see 1607260066).
IHS Markit analyst Paul Gagnon, who covered LeEco’s Oct. 19 San Francisco launch event, said he thinks the tie-in with DirecTV didn’t live up to LeEco’s hype when LeEco executives strongly implied the content partnership that they said would break all U.S. boundaries would be a service of LeEco’s own making. “It's not very disruptive if it is only a short window of exclusivity, and in the end many devices will be able to stream the service,” Gagnon, IHS Markit director-TV sets research, emailed us Tuesday. In the end, “there isn't much here that is part of LeEco's DNA,” unlike the original content and streaming services LeEco built from the ground up in China and has promised to replicate in the U.S., Gagnon said.