LeTV—which has recently changed its name to New Leshi as a symbolic new beginning—did not manage to shake off the numbers that came with its former name. According to the company’s released earnings, LeTV’s revenue in the first three quarters of 2017 amounted to RMB 554 million which is 91.76% less than the same period last year when the company made RMB 6.73 billion. The company had a net loss of 1.15 billion: at the same period last year, their profit was RMB 209 million meaning that the year-on-year drop was 586.49%.
Both revenues and net profits have fallen sharply due to a crisis in LeTV’s core business (in Chinese). Reports state that LeTV was able to sell only 50,000 units of its smart TV in September. In comparison, the annual sales of LeTV in 2016 was about 6 million units with the average monthly sales volume is half a million units.
Another dark shadow on LeTV is the investigation against two of the seven members of China Securities Regulatory Commission for “offering assistance” to facilitate LeTV RMB 730 million worth IPO. It is not clear if that prompted the departure of LeTV’s Cheif Marketing Officer Zhang Minhui which has joined Qihoo 360 after resigning in late October.
Heir to LeTV, New Leshi is the video-streaming listed division of LeEco group which Jia Yueting founded. Jia is still a stakeholder in the firm. He recently announced that he was unable to live up to his commitment to providing no-interest loans to LeTV. The business is now held by Sun Hongbin and Liang Jun and many are eagerly waiting for them to form the company’s new strategy. The company originally fell into trouble when the video streaming company began massive expansion into manufacturing smartphones and TVs, plus expanding overseas.