On Monday; the South Korean tech giant announced that it would close down its mobile phone unit after years of losses, marking the end of an era for a trailblazer in the Android world.
The division is expected to be wound down by July 31, although the company may continue to sell some of its existing models after that; according to LG Electronics.
The “strategic decision to exit the incredibly competitive mobile phone sector will enable the company to focus resources in growth areas; such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence, and business-to-business solutions,” the company said in a statement.
LG had been one of the major mobile pioneers in the feature phone market; also a larger player in the early 2010’s with many notable earlier successes such as the LG G2 or the G3.
Unfortunately, in the following years; the company had been struck hard; by chains of hardware disadvantages, ranging from the Snapdragon 810/808 generation in the G4; a failed attempt at hardware modularity in the G5.
LG had also suffered issues over several generations in their OLED display attempts, plagued by lower-quality panels with image quality issues, or power efficiency deficits compared to other alternatives in the market that used Samsung Display OLED panels.
The poor financial performance of LG’s smartphone business has been public information for several years. Like countless other Android smartphone vendors, LG has struggled to turn things around.
LG focused on mid-range and high-end smartphones; two segments of the market; that have become increasingly competitive in the past decade thanks to the rise of Chinese phone makers; such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo, and Vivo that are launching better value-for-money models every few months.
the firm won’t crash out of the industry entirely. “Moving forward; LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G,” it said in the statement.
“Core technologies developed during the two decades of LG’s mobile business operations; will also be retained and applied to existing and future products.”
Experts believe that this decision may help the company in the future. LG will enjoy better growth prospects overall once it does away with the mobile business; said Neil Shah, a partner and vice president of research at Counterpoint Research.
LG Electronics‘ stock closed down 2.5% in South Korea on Monday following the news