Companies
LeEco to lay off 325 workers in US branch
LeEco’s LeSee Pro concept car on display at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. AFP
Chinese technology company LeEco announced on Tuesday that it will lay off approximately 325 people in the US, two days after its founder Jia Yueting stepped down as CEO of its publicly traded arm Leshi on Sunday.
“The challenges with raising new capital have made it difficult in the past few months to support all of our business’ priorities. As a result, the capital we do have will have to be highly focused resulting in a significant restructuring and streamlining of our business, operations and workforce,” the company said in a statement.
May Zhu, a San Jose, California-based spokeswoman for LeEco, declined to provide the company’s current US headcount. But CNBC cited an unnamed source as saying that only 60 employees will be left after the cut and the current headcount in the US was more than 500.
A current employee at the San Jose campus, who asked to remain anonymous, said employees had been leaving the company continually since early this year.
As a result of a severe cash crunch stemming from overextension into various business ventures, LeEco said it has to “take a phased approach to the US market”.
Under the restructuring, LeEco will focus on the Chinese-speaking community to watch the company’s Chinese content library. Last week, the company “finalized on-shoring our customer care call center” to enhance the customer experience, according to the statement.
LeEco started out in China in 2004 as a streaming website known as Letv. It now makes TVs, smart phones, electric vehicles, electric bicycles and virtual-reality headsets, with a mission to “remove the barriers between screens”.
Looking to expand into the US market, LeEco opened North American headquarters in San Jose in April of last year with 250 employees. Shawn Williams, chief administrative officer of the San Jose campus, said at the opening event that…
China
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China’s industrial subsidies have caused considerable controversy both internationally and domestically. Trading partners have accused China of unfairly favouring its indigenous firms with subsidies, leaving foreign companies at a disadvantage in the race to lead the technologies of the future.
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