LeEco said the total number of orders received for its LeTV Le 1s smartphone has reached 2.2 lakh at the end of the third flash sale today.
A total of 65,000 units of the phone were ordered in a matter of 9 seconds today on Flipkart.
However, this does not mean that the company has sold 2.2 lakh units in India so far, because under the system that Flipkart has deviced, buyers need to pay for their purchase only after a few hours of placing the order, or when the order is actually delivered.
This means that a lot of people change their minds after clicking on purchase, resulting a lot of phones remaining unsold despite orders being placed for them.
Therefore, the total number of phones sold is likely to be around the 2 lakh mark, assuming an order cancellation rate of 10%.
However, this still means that the phone has now matched, and very possibly overtaken the Lenovo K4 Note as the biggest selling 4G phone in India this year.
Lenovo was just getting started with the sales of its K4 Note in the country when LeTV announced its entry. Lenovo had seen 1.8 lakh orders of K4 Note through the flash sale route till last week.
Assuming the same cancellation rate of 10%, total sales of the phone are likely to have been around 1.6 lakh.
This week, the company decided against holding another flash sale of 40,000 units and instead started selling it to anyone who wants to buy it since yesterday. It is still available for purchase on Amazon, indicating that demand has certainly been hit by the launch of its new competitor.
The key difference between K4 and LeTV 1s is in the processor, and to some extent in the overall build. The 1s has been crafted as a ‘near flagship’ model, while the K4 has been designed as a mid-range phone.
So the LeEco model comes with Helio X10 processor, which is about 60% more powerful than the MediaTek MT6753 found inside the other model.
However, both the smartphones will come under pressure when Xiaomi unveils its Redmi Note 3, which will come with native 4G voice support — something that is lacking in both these models.
Another model that will come with built-in support for VoLTE calling is Lenovo Lemon 3, which should hit India end of this month or early next.
In addition, Reliance LYF will also unveil freebies that it will give along with its phones next month, which will further increase competition and customer choice in the LTE market.