LeEco Android smartphones coming to U.S. this fall

LeEco is a huge force in China, where it offers a popular streaming service, smartphones and plenty of other gadgets. Now the company is set to bring its full force to the U.S. in an effort to challenge the entire American tech industry from Apple to Netflix.

LeEco’s PR director Todd Witkemper told PhoneScoop that the company is currently on a hiring spree ahead of its official U.S. launch, which will bring new smartphones and its video streaming service to the country this fall. The Chinese giant already employs about 400 people in the U.S., but it plans to increase that to 1,000 by the end of 2016.

LeEco’s already unveiled at least one device in the country. The Le Max Pro debuted earlier this year at CES in Las Vegas, making it the first phone to pack a Snapdragon 820 processor. The device was also supposed to launch in the U.S., but never actually arrived.

Rumor has it LeEco is currently working on an even better smartphone with a Snapdragon 821 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 25-megapixel rear camera and a fingerprint scanner. That sounds like a pretty sweet follow-up, and it could be just the device to propel the company into the competitive U.S. market later this year.