CNY2 Billion Deal Amps Up Chinese Smartphone’s Appeal

Chinese mobile phone retail channel provider D.Phone and Letv have reached a strategic deal with total value of CNY2 billion.

The two parties plan to enhance their alliance in various sectors, covering Letv's second-generation super phones, mobile TV services, membership promotions, Letv's ecosystem experience stores, and customer service.

During 2016, D.Phone will sell one million Letv super phones, 200,000 Letv super TVs, and 200,000 Letv memberships. Meanwhile, D.Phone will add no less than 1,500 Letv ecosystem experience stores into its retail outlets. The total cooperation value will reportedly reach CNY2 billion. In addition, between May and June 2016, the two parties will jointly hold the offline debut of Letv's second-generation super phones.

Letv officially rolled-out its second-generation super phones on April 20, 2016, including Le 2 at the price of CNY1,099, Le 2 Pro at the price of CNY1,499, and Le Max 2 at the price of CNY2,499.

Commenting on the cooperation with D.Phone, Feng Xing, president of Letv mobile, said that Letv's mobile phone strategy is a full-channel operation. Apart from carriers, third-party e-commerce and owned e-commerce channels, offline retail channel is also important. The strategic cooperation between D.Phone and Letv represents Letv mobile's important expansion of its offline retail channel.

This is the second year of operation for Letv's mobile phone business. Prior to the cooperation with D.Phone, they already reached deals with China Unicom and JD.com.