LG outguns Chinese rivals in U.S. smartphone market

LG Electronics seems to be on course to solidify its presence in the U.S. market, outrunning its Chinese rivals Huawei and Lenovo.

The Korean smartphone-maker has reclaimed the third spot in the U.S. in March, taking up 17.1 percent of market share, according to a report released by Counterpoint Research, a market researcher, on Thursday.

The market share is the third highest after Samsung Electronics and Apple, which held 28.8 percent and 23 percent in the same month, respectively.

Chinese smartphone-makers Huawei and Lenovo, which have expanded their foothold in the global markets, have posed a challenge for LG over the past few years, eating into the Korean firm's market share in the U.S.

LG, once considered one of the big three smartphone-makers with Samsung and Apple, was in fourth place in the U.S. market in 2012 while Huawei captured the third spot. The two companies have vied against each other for third place since then.

Concerns over LG's performance have increased recently as its handsets failed to appeal to global consumers. LG's G4 smartphone, predecessor of the G5, failed to improve the firm's balance sheet last year.

LG reportedly shipped around 5.5 million units of the G4 last year, much lower than 10 million posted by the G3 smartphone.

The Counterpoint Research repor t showed a glimpse of LG's resilience in the U.S. market, where the firm's annual smartphone sales accounts more than 50 percent of its global smartphone sales,

The market researcher said LG's recent upbeat performance in the U.S. market was largely thanks to its low-end and mid-range handsets, such as the V10 and the K series smartphones.

"We have maintained a 7 to 8 percentage point lead over the fourth largest market player in the U.S. smartphone market for a long time," said Song Keun-young, a public relations representative at LGE, questioning the credibility of the report.

Meanwhile, the G5's camera was picked as the best smartphone camera among seven smartphone models including Samsung's Galaxy S7 Edge, Apple's iPhone 6S Plus, and Huawei's P9, according to a survey by Android Authority, an online tech news media.

The G5 scored 91 points in 16 test categories in the survey, beating the Galaxy S6 Edge and iPhone 6S Plus, which gained 85 and 84 points, respectively.

LGE earlier said that it had shipped around 1.6 million units of the G5 in the first month since its release on March 31.

The firm anticipated that sales of the G5 could reach more than 3 million in the April-June period, but some market watchers were more positive.

Shinhan Investment forecast that the sales could surpass 3.5 million in the second month with the G5's accumulative sales this year reaching 12 million, 20 percent higher than that of LG's G3 smartphone.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

Source: LG outguns Chinese rivals in U.S. smartphone market

What’s the story with the cheap Chinese VR headsets?

I've been noticing a disturbing trend in much of the news media and analyst research reports covering virtual reality hardware — a complete and utter dismissal of the virtual reality headsets made in China.

Instead, all the attention goes to the super-pricey and super-niche tethered headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Sony Playstation. Yes, those headsets offer better quality and a more immersive experience, for now at least. And their target audience, hard-core gamers with deep pockets, is a minority when compared to all the people who are actually buying up viewers.

First generation viewers sucked

Okay, it is true that early Chinese headsets weren't that great.

First, they evolved from movie-watching headsets, and designed for users with a wide range of smartphones. As a result, the headsets were heavy, since people weren't expected to move their heads around that much. And the field of view was relatively narrow, to make maximum use of the pixels available on the lower-end phones.

Field of views of 60 to 80 degrees were common. By comparison, the Samsung Gear VR, the current top end of the mobile-based headsets, has a field of view of 96 degrees, and the tethered headsets come in at around 110 degrees.

Another problem with the early headsets is that the design style seem to be based on early versions of the Oculus Rift, which was created by a teenage college dropout. (Hi, Palmer! You rock!) So it's got a bit of a masculine, motorcycle aesthetic.

The first development kit version of the Oculus Rift.

Compare that to some of the early Chinese headset designs:

These headsets are still on the market, of course, and are still selling. In fact, because they've been around for a while, they've accumulated significant sales totals and reviews, and have seen prices fall to under $20. So people are still buying them, and basing their opinions about Chinese headsets on this first generation.

Meanwhile, early headsets made in the U.S., Europe, Japan and even Russia looked much more attractive, and offered better features, such as lighter weight and bigger fields of view.

MergeVR

Fibrum

Homido

Durovis Dive

Yay 3D

Newest Chinese viewers superior to older brand-name sets

Then, last year, Samsung came out with the Gear VR. This was a headset that was designed by actual product designers. It looked cool, was appealing to both genders, and set new performance goals for all other mobile-based headsets.

Samsung Gear VR for the Galaxy S6, the early Innovators Edition.

Of course, some aspects of the Gear VR were easier to copy than others. The black-and-white color scheme, for example, the light weight, the adjustable lenses, and the comfortable foam.

Take a look at some of the current best-selling Chinese headsets:

Baofeng Mojing 3

Ling VR

FiiT VR

DeePoon V3

BoboVR Z4

Pretty much all the new headsets are black and white, and some of them look almost identical to the Gear VR if you place them next to each other. In addition to being more attractive, the latest Chinese headsets are light-weight, comfortable, have adjustable lenses, wide field of views and — unlike the Gear VR — work with any late-model smartphone instead of being limited to just one brand.

And the Chinese manufacturers keep innovating.

Some are now working on their fifth-generation headsets. Baofeng Mojing, for example, has half a dozen headsets available, which it sells both online and through its network of 20,000 bricks-and-mortar retail stores. In the first three months of this year, the company reported that it has sold over a million headsets.

Baofeng Mojing 2

Baofeng Mojing 3

Baofeng Mojing 4

Baofeng Small Mojing

Baofeng Mojing D

And Baofeng is just one of more than 100 different virtual reality headset manufacturers based in China. The competition is fierce, and the pace of innovation is just astounding. Plus, the scale of the manufacturing is driving component prices down to the point where a new, lightweight, easy-to-use headset with a great field of view now costs less than a brand-name viewer made of actual cardboard.

Meanwhile, the brand names known here in the U.S. — the Durovis Dive, the Merge VR, the Homido — are still on their first versions.

The next stage of evolution for Chinese headsets is going to be trickier, and involves transitioning headsets from simple dumb boxes with lenses to viewers with additional built-in technology, such as extra sensors, trackpads, back buttons and volume controls, as well as custom app stores and virtual interface environments.

Some of the Chinese manufacturers have already begun working on virtual reality environments that allow users to navigate between different apps without having to take the smartphone out of the viewer, but they are currently mostly or completely in Chinese.

The just-announced Huawei VR headset will only work with the latest Huawei smartphones, and includes a Gear VR-style trac kpad and button on the right side. (Image courtesy Huawei.)

And they are beginning to add functionality into the headset as well. For example, the newly-released Huawei VR headset comes with a built-in trackpad, back button and volume control just like the Gear VR — and it only works with the latest-model Huawei smartphones.

Pico 1 VR headset. Note the trackpad on the side, the back button above it, and the volume control immediately in front of it.

A more interesting headset, since it works with smartphones from any manufacturer, not just Samsung or Huawei, is the Pico 1 VR. It just came on the market, and it includes a Gear VR-style trackpad. There is also a custom app available, but only from the company website — not the official Google Play store. The Pico VR app is bilingual, so English speakers can generally navigate it, but still lacks content and functionality. On the other hand, it just came out, so expect things to improve quickly.

Mobile headsets not a dead end

Some experts see mobile-based headsets as a transitional stage, a trial run for consumers before they upgrade to real virtual reality — to tethered sets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

But the Gear VR headset clearly illustrates that while mobile isn't as good as tethered — a smartphone can't compare to a $1,000 high-end gaming desktop — it's already pretty good enough.

Plus, consider how often technology gets upgraded.

Desktops and consoles get replaced every five or six years. When they break, we fix them. Plus, they're expensive, so we tend to move them as little as possible. Desktops, for example, tend not to be moved much at all, and laptops are treated gently and packed in heavy protective cases.

By comparison, smartphones get replaced every one or two years, or whenever they're broken or lost. We carry them in our pockets, drop them in the toilet, scratch the screens, and we compare them constantly to those owned by our friends and relatives.

And we're always downloading new apps, and the cool new apps need better graphics, and faster processors, so we're even more motivated to upgrade. On my PC, I use a word processor that saves all my files in a 15-year-old format. Because it's still good enough.

According to IDC, vendors shipped a total of 1.4 billion smartphones last year, marking the highest year of shipments on record, up 10.1 percent from the 1.3 billion shipped in 2014.

Meanwhile, worldwide PC shipments dropped to 276 million last year, down from 308 million in 2014, a 10.4 percent decline, IDC reported, making 2015 the first year below 300 million units since 2008.

Smartphone and PC shipments, with projections for 2016 and 2020. (IDC data.)

Performance-wise, the two top-selling phones — Apple's iPhone 6 and Samsung's Salaxy S6 — have 1.8 and 2.1 GHz processor speeds, respectively. The top-selling PCs range between 1.4 and 3.2 GHz.

The minimum recommended processor for the Oculus Rift is the Intel i5-4590, with a speed of 3.3 GHz. The Galaxy S7, one of the fastest phones on the market today, comes in at 2.3 GHz, still falling short.

For virtual reality, we'll also want to see a video frame rate of 90 — up from the current smartphone standard of 60. And positional head tracking, where the phone knows if you lean straight forward without turning your head. Both help reduce motion sickness.

But I have a feeling that both features are high on the to-do lists of smartphone manufacturers…

Media is the current killer app

… and that's because today's killer virtual reality app is not the fast-paced first-person shooter games that get all the attention.

The real killer app for virtual reality is the ability to watch videos, traditional movies and TV shows, 3D movies, and virtual reality videos, on your phone. For many people around the world, a $20 headset that puts you on a virtual couch in front of a giant virtual movie screen — or right in the middle of a 360-degree video — is solid gold. Plug in your audio earphones, and you have a private media experience no matter how many people you share your apartment or train with.

An immersive video of bears in Kamchatka, in VR-friendly side-by-side view.

A tethered headset, with its wires and its desktop computer, isn't particularly useful here. A mobile headset is completely portable.

And mobile phones are good at playing videos.

When you combine the available libraries of traditionally-filmed movies and TV shows, with new 360-degree content coming out at a rapid pace, life is good for the mobile headset user. Add in sports events filmed in virtual reality, fashion shows and music videos, and — of course! — adult content, and you wind up with a lot of use for your headset before you even get to the games.

End Space VR, one of my favorite games for mobile VR headsets.

And yes, there are thousands of games in the app stores that are compatible with today's mobile VR headsets. For the most part, they are casual games. Expect Angry Birds, not Call of Duty. But they are still fun to play and load quickly, making them a good fit for a portable headset.

Source: What's the story with the cheap Chinese VR headsets?

China’s booming middle class bodes well for Apple, says Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook still sees great potential in the Chinese market despite a drop in its revenue from the country in the first quarter.

In an interview to Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money program, Cook said Monday that the middle class in China is expected to boom from 50 million people five years ago to almost 500 million in the next five years. "This is an unprecedented growth of the middle class," said Cook, adding that he "could not be more optimistic about China."

To a question from Cramer, Cook said it was an error by him not to to mention the figures about the burgeoning Chinese middle class during the company's recent earnings call.

Apple reported last month that the number of smartphones it sold worldwide fell by 16 percent to 51.2 million units in its fiscal second quarter ended March 26. The company saw a 26 percent year-on-year decline in revenue from Greater China, its second largest market. The revenue drop in mainland China was less at 11 percent.

The company's overall revenue and profit for the quarter also fell from the same period last year. But Cook's message on CNBC was that Apple was still doing fine, despite some investors and analysts expressing reservations about the outlook for the company.

Apple is facing iPhone fatigue and pressure is mounting for the company "to innovate a new wow design beyond its standard rectangle form factor," said Neil Mawston, executive director at research firm Strategy Analytics, for example.

The company is to an extent the victim of its own success in the previous year with the iPhone 6. People are upgrading at a lower rate than they did last year but still higher than the year before, as the company had an "abnormally high upgrade rate" last year as people bought into the iPhone 6, Cook said. "Now we are comparing to that along with the other things going on that many companies are facing with currency rates and macro economics, etc.," he added.

Cook said the company is seeing higher rates of people switching from Android phones to iPhones, which was the largest ever in the last six months.

In China, its second largest market by revenue, switchers were up 40 percent from the first half of last year to the first half of this year, Cook said. The new 4-inch iPhone SE is doing well in that market and the company hopes to resolve soon with Chinese government agencies and businesses the issues that forced it to take its books and movie services online.

Services such as books and movies is an area in which the company sees great potential. Revenue from services, including Apple Music and the App Store, grew 20 percent to US$6 billion in the first quarter, and is the second largest revenue segment for the company.

The relationship with Apple doesn't stop when people buy an iPhone, but continues with users buying apps across the App Store, or subscribing to Apple Music, buying songs, renting moves, using Apple Pay and buying additional storage on iCloud, Cook said.  All this follows  from the number of people using Apple devices and there are currently over a billion in use, he added.

Services may be also an area for Apple's merger and acquisitions. The company has said it may do bigger M&As than previously. "Could it come in services? Yes, and we've bought some companies to help us in services. But it can also come in a number of other areas," Cook told Cramer.

Source: China's booming middle class bodes well for Apple, says Tim Cook

Smartphone uptake passes its peak as industry appetite wanes

James Henderson | May 3, 2016

Vendors shipped a total of 334.9 million smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), up slightly from the 334.3 million units in 1Q15, marking the smallest year-over-year growth on record.

Vendors shipped a total of 334.9 million smartphones worldwide in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16), up slightly from the 334.3 million units in 1Q15, marking the smallest year-over-year growth on record.

IDC findings suggest that the minimal growth this quarter is primarily attributed to strong smartphone saturation in developed markets, as well as a year-over-year decline from both Apple and Samsung, the two market leaders.

The biggest change to the market, however, was the addition of lesser-known Chinese brands OPPO and vivo, which pushed out previous fourth and fifth place players Lenovo and Xiaomi, respectively.

As the China market matures, the appetite for smartphones has slowed dramatically as the explosion of uptake has passed its peak.

In 2013, China's year-over-year shipment growth was 62.5 percent; by 2015, it had dropped to 2.5 percent - conversely, the average selling price (ASP) for a smartphone in China rose from US$207 in 2013 to $257 in 2015.

"Along China's maturing smartphone adoption curve, the companies most aligned with growth are those with products serving increasingly sophisticated consumers," says Melissa Chau, senior research manager, IDC.

"Lenovo benefited with ASPs below $150 in 2013, and Xiaomi picked up the mantle with ASPs below $200 in 2014 and 2015.

"Now Huawei, OPPO, and vivo, which play mainly in the sub-$250 range, are positioned for a strong 2016.

"These new vendors would be well-advised not to rest on their laurels though, as this dynamic smartphone landscape has shown to even cult brands like Xiaomi that customer loyalty is difficult to consistently maintain."

Outside of China, IDC states that many of these brands are virtually unknown and the ability of these rapidly growing Chinese vendors to gain entry into mature markets such as the United States and Western Europe will be essential if they have aspirations of catching Apple or Samsung at the top.

"Huawei has proven that it can sell increasingly premium devices," adds Anthony Scarsella, research manager, IDC.

"In China, Huawei is already recognised as a premium brand, but it is now going toe-to-toe on build quality with premium devices like the Nexus 6P that are available worldwide.

"While Huawei is furthest along in terms of international recognition, selling equally impressive volumes outside of China remains a challenge for many of these brands, whether it is Xiaomi, Lenovo, OPPO, or vivo. Their ability to drive local growth no longer applies when it comes to international expansion, where premium branding quickly turns to price competition."

Samsung

Samsung remained the leader in the worldwide smartphone market despite a year-over-year decline of 0.6 percent in shipments.

Despite the slight decline, the new Galaxy S7 and S7 edge sold vigorously in the month of March and was helped by numerous enticing carrier promotions to help push volume.

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Source: Smartphone uptake passes its peak as industry appetite wanes

Smartphone survival test: LG Nexus 5X's sale price makes it a bargain

Image: ZDNet

After a month, our Smartphone Survival Test is over. And it has been quite a learning experience.

I've learned that despite a lot of my previous misgivings about the operating system and some of the questionable hardware I've dealt with in years past, things have improved considerably in Android land.

I'm going to come right out and say it up front. I like Android. I like it a lot, and it's going to resume its place in my overall technology portfolio.

Finding out whether I liked Android again was not the primary reason for this exercise, though. Instead, my goal was to determine whether a low-cost Android phone can replace a more expensive iOS device, my iPhone 6S.

The answer is yes, but the devil is in the details, and you need to do your homework and understand your application workload.

The consistent theme across this test was understanding Bill of Materials (BOM) for a particular phone, and how performance characteristics of Android and its applications express themselves on particular hardware.

Moreover, the amount of RAM installed in a given device will make a significant impact on the overall user experience. CPU clock, RAM speed and the type of flash storage technology used can offset some of that impact, but if you are going to make a feature decision that overrides all others, it should be a RAM-first one.

This should be a mantra for Android OEMs: Don't make a device with less than 3GB of RAM, ever.

And as a consumer don't buy a device with less than 3GB of RAM, unless you really understand the performance characteristics of the apps you rely on.

As always, there are trade-offs: If cost is at the top of your list and you can get a device for a very good price with other compelling features to offset its RAM deficiency, you might be able to make an exception.

That's another thing to be learned from this experiment: With Android, you can price shop and compare devices. There's ample competition. And sometimes, you can get some very deep discounts.

You can't do that with an iOS devices. With Apple's products, the price is pretty much the price, whether you get it from them directly or via the reseller channel.

A good example of a device that is being heavily discounted right now is the Google LG Nexus 5X.

Image:GSMArena.com

Normally, this phone costs between $349-$399 depending on whether you get it in a 16GB or 32GB storage configuration. And you'd be foolish to spend that kind of money on it, given the fact that it only has 2GB of RAM.

However, if you are willing to test out Google's Project Fi -- you can get the phone for $150 off.

That means you can get the 16GB version for $199 and the 32GB version for $249, through May 8.

So you have about a week left to take advantage of this.

If you buy this phone and intend to discontinue service right after activating Project Fi in order to take advantage of the discount, I recommend that you create a throwaway GMail account for the purposes of ordering the phone.

There's a lot to like about the Nexus 5X, starting with the fact that it has the broadest frequency support and fastest wireless technology of any device I've seen at the price point it is being offered at.

It's designed to work natively on Cat 6 LTE 300/50 networks, which is the fastest technology implementation of the standard currently usable in the United States.

It supports all the major radio bands on all the US and international carriers and also uses both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz 802.11ac high-speed Wi-Fi standards -- which is a requirement for inclusion on Google's Project Fi service.

It sports a powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, and has a sharp 423ppi 1080p 5.2" display. The camera is one of the best I have used at this price point. with 12MP, dual flash and laser autofocus.

The selfie cam is fairly standard at 5MP, and the battery (which is not removable) is a decent 2700 mAh, so it should last you most of the day without a recharge -- and if you do need to juice up in the middle of the day, it uses Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology (over USB-C interface) so you will be up and going again fairly quickly, especially if you get a compatible adapter for your car or office.

And be sure to pick up a few extra certified USB-C cables.

So what doesn't it have?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, it's only got 2GB of RAM. After using slower CPU-clocked devices over the last few weeks with 3GB of RAM, the difference in performance is definitely noticeable.

This is not as bad as what I observed on the Huawei Honor 5X, but if you have enough apps running in the background -- and it doesn't take many for the effects of this to show -- things can slow down quite a bit.

The faster Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 SoC, faster flash storage technology, as well as the more efficient Android Runtime in the Marshmallow 6.0 OS (which gets frequent patch updates due to the device being a Google Nexus) compensates for this somewhat.

But if this phone sold for $200 or $250 with 3GB of RAM it would be damned-near perfect.

And that is what I have truly learned over the last month -- there is no "perfect" $200 or $250 Android phone yet. To get that just right confluence of components on a BOM you might need to spend $350 or $400 on a phone.

Which puts you right into iPhone SE territory, although at $350 or $400 you can get a lot of Android phone for the money, if you shop smart.

Here's the thing though -- we've only just started to observe the effects of large-scale commoditization with Android smartphones. And the reason is that the big Chinese companies have not landed their offensive in a major way in the US market yet.

LG and Samsung, the two largest Korean manufacturers, do not have the economies of scale that companies like Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE do. They can't leverage China as a massive integrated supply chain, period.

And while Apple does routinely use China as a giant factory, it will not sacrifice its margins.

Over the long haul we're going to see more Chinese-designed and branded devices with all-Chinese components with highly vertically integrated designs.

If you want to see a glimpse of that future, have a look at Huawei's P9, which uses domestically produced components, including its SoC, the HiSilicon Kirin 955.

Right now, phones like the P9 are high-end technology demonstrators for companies like Huawei.

But eventually those components will form the foundation for that "perfect" $200 device that hits all of the important high-notes that fits all of the use case scenarios for the average consumer.

When will that happen? It could be five years from now. It could be two years. It could be six months. But there is no doubt it is definitely coming.

Until then, sharpen your smartphone survival skills.

Are you "Surviving" with a low-cost Android smartphone today? Talk Back and Let Me Know.

Source: Smartphone survival test: LG Nexus 5X's sale price makes it a bargain

Smartphone demand falls for the first time ever

The shipments of smartphones worldwide in the first quarter marked the smallest year-on-year growth on record, and Chinese smartphone makers Oppo Electronics Corp and Vivo Mobile Communication Technology Co Ltd pushed out previous fourth and fifth place players Lenovo Group Ltd and Xiaomi Corp, a report said.

Huawei, which shipped 27.5 million smartphones in the quarter, saw its marketshare surge by almost 60% year-over-year to 8.2%, thanks to continued domestic dominance, combined with a growing presence outside of China. However, there are signs that Huawei's growth in the high end segment is now starting to slow, as several major rivals like OPPO and Vivo are fighting back. 3 percent. Conversely, number three vendor Huawei made significant market share gains, rising from five percent market share in the first quarter 2015 to 8.5 percent in the same quarter this year. Samsung remained the world's biggest smartphone vendor, with sal es of its new flagship Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones helping it to ship 79 million units in the quarter.

That brought its share down slightly to 23.6% from 24% a year earlier.

One company that defied the downward trend is China's Huawei, which saw shipments rise 64 percent from 17.3 million in Q1 2015 to 28.3 million in Q1 2016.

Anti-Trump protesters clash with policeSeveral hundred delegates and paid attendees waited in a long security line, along with dozens of reporters, to hear Trump speak. Trump walks along a jersey wall after his motorcade took a detour when the large crowd of protesters gathered outside the hotel.

Apple fell 16 percent annually and shipped a disappointing 51.2 million smartphones worldwide in Q1 2016.

BlackBerry's woes continue, with an estimated 53% decline in units shipped, despite a pivot to Android with the Priv. Unless sales pick up in 2016, as more Android devices are released, Juniper anticipates that BlackBerry will exit the smartphone market in the near future. Apple cited slowing iPhone sales among the factors for its first revenue drop since 2003, and Strategy Analytics believes other vendors have, or will soon, feel the pinch as the global market tightens. Maturity and saturation in larger markets like the USA and China is also having an impact on shipment figures.

Global smart watch shipments grew at a phenomenal pace in 1Q16, Strategy Analytics said. "The average is about four years". "All this being said, consumers are bound to have more choice in connecting their cellular-enabled tablets in the next 12-18 months and the carr iers that are the most prepared will reap the rewards".

Almost all smartphone brands faced varying degrees of decline with the exception of Samsung and Huawei, who have seen mild and moderate growth respectively.

Source: Smartphone demand falls for the first time ever

Faraday Future's Chinese backer unveils Tesla Model S-rivaling electric sedan concept

You may know LeEco (formerly known as LeTV) as the newest Chinese smartphone maker to enter India, with its first device - the LeEco Le 1S - previous year.

LeEco also makes smartphones and televisions but it's really pushing cars right now following its Aston Martin and Faraday Future investments.

The new pure-electric sedan, called the LeSEE (that stands for The Super Electric Ecosystem), was originally set to be unveiled on April 25 but was revealed late last night in a televised press conference.

LeEco chief executive Jia Yueting demoed some of the self-driving capabilities at the event, including driving and parking.

The car gawking public will get a closer look at the LeSEE (pronounced, fittingly, similarly to "lessee") at the upcoming Bejing Auto Show - though the company did offer up some interesting tidbits about the autonomous concept vehicle, including a top speed of 130 miles per hour, an exterior display on the front of the car, and a foldaway steering wheel. LeEco is likewise partnering with Aston Martin to develop electrical vehicle innovation and infotainment systems. "We are getting there some day".

"There's a shared philosophy between our verticals", said Yueting when asked if LeEco will follow the same business model for LeSee as it has for its other hardware. There are no conventional mirrors but cameras are available to allow the driver to see around the vehicle.

China's technology giant Le Eco revealed the first details of their electric auto called the LeSEE, ahead of its debut at the Beijing Motor Show debut. "I am so emotional", Jia said at a LeEco launch event where a number of products in addition to the LeSEE were launched. This plan was announced at the unveiling of Faraday Future's first concept vehicle, although the companies wouldn't specify how the arrangement would work at the time.

Source: Faraday Future's Chinese backer unveils Tesla Model S-rivaling electric sedan concept