The mobile phone is now evolving from a means to make phone calls and receive them to a full fledged lifestyle and productivity companion for many of us. This evolution comes with a lot of changes in the demands and expectations that we have from our devices. We are now living in an age where the device itself is slowly becoming the second layer of the experience and the content behind the device is the first one. It is in this area that LeEco have their game right.
The ability to take the experience to the next level needs a strong content strategy and a varied content library firmly behind devices. That way, whatever the specification, color or segment of the device, the experience stays uniform and engaging. Right from their entry into India, LeEco have been painting the town red with the clear message that they are an ecosystem player and are in the game for the long haul.
Whether you get a budget phone or a premium phone or even a smart TV from them, you will see that the content ecosystem is right there, and the library is one of the best that you will get. The strategic partnerships with the CDNs are very critical here and seem to be doing the job very well.
Initially in India, any attempt at providing content on the go had a big challenge that it had to face – bandwidth. The internet was not fully up to speed. Content delivery choked due to the infrastructure being inadequate to handle the speeds and stability needed to effectively serve up content whenever the user needed it or called it up. The ISPs then stepped their game up and we saw the Fiber and the 4G services become available. With all this coming up, the delivery networks had no issues delivering content.
The more recent development of Jio services being available to million of Indians, the equation becomes even more favorable for streaming services and multimedia access from the mobile device.
When we see all this as pieces of a bigger picture, it becomes very clear that LeEco’s gambit of going with content backend as the deal maker is a winner. People want access to videos, music and rich content on the move. I have seen housewives doubling work with catching up on their favorite soaps online. I have seen young people catch US shows as they are aired.There are many brilliant educational applications of the streaming video in scenarios where teachers cannot physically reach students. A college in Chennai recently did streaming classes when there was a flood. So this is here to stay and in a big way.
Whenever anyone gets a phone, given the speed and availability of internet on offer, the next thing that they are looking for is how to get access to relevant content on their devices and when the device is from LeEco where you can catch anything from TV shows to latest blockbusters online at the tap of an icon, the deal is sweet indeed.
Going forward, content delivery is going to be the key and the actual devices themselves will become windows that enable access into the content ecosystem. So the LeEco game of letting content be a part of the device experience and offering is future proof and we are bound to see more players move that way. LeEco clearly has the first mover advantage and the fact that they have implemented, scaled and delivered this in China with much success will stand them in good stead here.
It is going to be very exciting to see what LeEco beings out next out of their bag and how it will tie in with their ongoing strategy of making content the king of the whole experience. This will be exciting! They certainly have an edge over the others now.
