LeEco has increased its stake in Coolpad to 28.9 percent from 17.9 percent — becoming the largest shareholder of the Chinese phone brand.
The combined LeEco and Coolpad expect to sell 100 million smartphones globally in 2017.
LeEco has become the largest shareholder after it purchased 11 percent stake for 1.047 billion HKD or $135 million from Data Dreamland, the former largest shareholder of Coolpad.
Jia Yueting, founder of LeEco confirmed the deal at a speech at Russia’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
LeEco invested 2.74 billion HKD or $353 million for buying 18 percent stake in Coolpad last June 28.
The integration will help Coolpad’s products to align with LeEco’s ecosystem model, which is focusing on the concept of platform + content + terminal + application. Coolpad already dominates China’s 3G and 4G market together with Samsung.
By this April, LeEco, a new brand in the global smartphone market, sold more than 10 million smartphones, and its second quarter single month sales has exceeded 2 million units, and the number is expected to be over 3 million in the third quarter.
LeEco as Coolpad’s largest shareholder will benefit from added product research, patents, marketing and after-sales capabilities.
Coolpad has a 3000-strong R&D team, with over 7000 patents including more than 500 patents overseas, and has already established 7 major R&D centers around the world.
Besides more than 500 direct offline stores in China, Coolpad also has sales in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Before the deal, Coolpad’s 2016 sales target was 30 billion yuan or $4.6 billion — 70 percent from China and 30 percent from overseas. The company targets its overseas market sale to increase 100 percent year on year within the next 3-5 years, making its overseas sales equivalent to its China sales.
