China's smartphone market gets even more crowded

China's already crowded smartphone market just got more packed, with new devices from Letv - a Chinese internet company relatively unknown to many westerners - netting 1.2m pre-orders in a single day.

The company, which runs one of China's better known video streaming websites, launched the Le1, Le1 Pro and LeMax smartphones. Letv is offering free internet and free video content to its smartphone users, as well as a relatively low price of $245 for the Le1.

Xiaomi, an internet company that branched out into selling phones, adopted a similar strategy four years ago. Its device was intended to be a "gateway to an ecosystem" rather than merely a device on which to make calls and surf online.

Letv's advantage is its access to content, including foreign television series such as Netflix's House of Cards.

But although 1.2m pre-orders might be cause for champagne corks to pop elsewhere in the world, it is not that big a deal in China - new smartphone launches in the country can generate 4m daily pre-orders from the likes of the industry leaders such as Huawei and Xiaomi.

Xin Haiguang, a technology industry expert in Beijing, said the level of pre-orders was "an encouraging number for Letv, a newcomer smartphone maker. But it does not come as a huge surprise, nor is it very likely that the number is exaggerated, because frankly it's not that large."

Xiaomi wrote the playbook on marketing smartphones in China with its online strategy, cheap prices and networks of fans who popularise the phones through word-of-mouth. This method has been widely mimicked by competitors, prompting Xiaomi last month to cut prices on its latest phone model, the Mi4, due to competition.

Letv declined to comment.

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