Chinese company Letv plans to bring its smartphones and smart TVs to the United States later this year and to launch a video streaming service for Chinese-speaking Americans, the company said.

Letv said it set up a U.S. headquarters in Redwood City, California, part of the Silicon Valley tech hub, and has opened an office in Los Angeles.

The company plans to hire hundreds of staff for the two locations in the coming months, JD Howard, vice president and general manager of Letv's international mobile business, said in an interview. It is looking to partner with U.S. content providers and technology companies, he said.

"Our ambition is to make a serious disruption in the smartphone industry," Howard said. "We need to take the key advantages we have built in China and translate them to other markets."

For the new streaming service, Letv aims to create an offering similar to what consumers watch in China, the company said. Letv has an online library of Chinese content that includes more than 100,000 television episodes and 5,000 films.

The service will likely offer a mix of ad-supported, subscription and pay-per-view content as Letv does in China, Howard said.