A billionaire serial entrepreneur from China, whose company LeEco offers an ecosystem of streaming video services, electric vehicles, television sets and smartphones, has lambasted Apple for failing to innovate — and says it is failing in China as a result.
“As an industry leader, Apple should be developing more cutting-edge products,” he said. “The iPhone was still a leader five years ago after being launched in 2008 but now the concept has fallen behind.”
Kind of funny considering that LeEco recently rushed to beat Apple to release a smartphone without a 3.5mm headphone jack!
In his first international interview with CNBC, Jia Yueting said that Apple is losing momentum in China due to how “outdated” its products and ideas are.
“We believe the next generation of mobile internet will be more open, more ecosystem oriented instead of being a closed loop,” Yueting said. “Ironically, Apple’s over-dominance, lack of internet-thinking and the closed off nature of its systems, all hindered innovation in the internet mobile industry.”
Interestingly, despite blasting Apple for focusing on its ecosystem building, LeEco’s latest concept is trying to sell movies, TV shows and music to buyers of its self-driving, smart LeSEE supercar, which is supposed to rival Tesla’s Model S. Apple was recently forced to stop selling iTunes Movies and shutter the iBooks Store in China as a way of favoring local businesses.
Regardless, Yueting thinks any problems Apple is having is down to the fact that “Apple’s innovation has become extremely slow,” with the new iPhone SE (you know, that phone which is selling like gangbusters in China!) being one example. “We think this is something they just shouldn’t have done,” he said.
Source: CNBC
