China’s LeEco denies quitting India amid further job losses

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Just as the shock subsides from last week’s Snapdeal layoffs, more India firing news comes in. This time, it’s LeEco, the Chinese gadget maker that’s been busy expanding into India. The US$9.2 billion company is laying off a large number of its India staff, The Economic Times reported this morning.

“[The layoffs] haven’t started yet, but they are happening,” Subhashini Rajaram, LeEco India senior manager of public relations and communication, tells Tech in Asia. “Closing down India is not true.” The job losses are part of a reorganization strategy, she said.

In a separate email response LeEco said the company is merely changing gears to tackle the “tough competitive market scenario in India.”

“LeEco has a healthy product pipeline for India this year. The company is gearing up to launch its next generation TV in the coming week. Premium models of smartphones too are to follow. All this certainly does not signal a company is winding up,” LeEco spokesperson wrote in the email.

ET reported 85 percent of the company’s staff has been laid off.

Growing pains

LeEco, best known for its smartphones and TVs, kicked off 2016 with an entrance into India despite reports it was running out of cash after swift expansion into several new countries and bankrolling two new electric car brands – US-based Faraday Future and China-based LeSee.

LeEco aimed to be one of the top three brands in India’s fast-growing smartphone market.

In February, Indian Television reported that 250 of the 400 LeEco employees in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi had been fired between late last year and early this year.

Tech in Asia has asked about the number of employees LeEco has in India and how many of them have been fired. We will update upon a response.

See: In trying to be China’s Google, is LeEco spreading itself too thin?

(The story was updated to add LeEco’s official response to the report.)