China's Letv May Expand its Business to African Shores

Letv, a multinational internet company headquartered in Beijing, could enhance its globalization by expanding its presence into Africa.

Being invited to be part of the China enterprise delegation led by Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the China-Africa Cooperation Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa, from December 2 to 5th, indicates the likelihood of Letv establishing partnerships with local companies.

Letv was the only Chinese internet company which was invited to be part of this high-level forum which was attended by Letv's co-founder Liu Hong .

During the Governmental summit, Letv held talks with Mzwandile Masina, Deputy Minister of South African Trade and Industry and also met with South and African Trade and Investment Bureau to better understand working with South African companies in the fields of cloud computing, content and terminals.

Letv's holistic eco-system based business model includes involvement of platform, content, devices and applications. The company has had great success in China so far. Letv's business not only includes cloud and content services, but also services for terminals like Super phones, Super TVs, and Super electric cars. Letv may replicate and adapt its ecosystem business model for Africa with South Africa being the first country the conglomerate ventures into.

Letv Clouds Computing Company now has more than 650 CDN nodes with a total bandwidth of more than 10 terabytes. With more than half of the CDN nodes based out of China, Letv's cloud services cover more than 60 countries. In the field of content, Letv not only has its video-streaming services, which has been listed separately, but also has two movie and television show production companies of which Le Vision Pictures is the third largest movie company in China.

And Letv's terminal business also leads the industry with the Super TV, Super phone, and Super electric car. Separately, Letv has also invested in a string of companies, including Beijing Media Group, Coolpad, and Yongche.com.

It may be recalled that Letv started its globalization from 2014, when it set up sub-companies in Silicon Valley, where it has incubated its Super Car business, and Hong Kong. At present, Letv is also likely to enter India as well, most likely making its foray with smartphones.

South Africa, as the only African country in the BRICS block, plays a leading role in China and African cooperation. At the end of 2014, South Africa was China’s largest trading partner in Africa for the 5th consecutive year and China is also South Africa's biggest export market for the last six years.

Letv is a multinational internet company headquartering in Beijing, China. Established in 2004 as a video-streaming company, Letv has grown into a company with a market value of nearly 100 billion Yuan (US$15.6 billion), with nearly 10,000 employees and a wide variety of businesses.