Big Brand LG going to shutdown it’s Smartphone Business, Due to Losses : 26 year later

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Big Brand LG going to shutdown it’s Smartphone Business as LG officially said on 5th April 2020 they will wind off there smartphone business due to losses this set to make LG as First Big Smartphone Brand to shutdown from the market.

Its decision to pull out will leave its 10 percent share in North America, where it is the No. 3 brand, to be gobbled up by smartphone titans Apple and Samsung Electronics.

LG Smartphone Business to Shutdown :-

In a press release confirming its exit from the smartphone space, LG said that its decision “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, as well as platforms and services.”

“In South America, Samsung and Chinese companies such as Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are expected to benefit in the low to mid-end segment,” said Park Sung-soon, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.

While other well-known mobile brands such as Nokia, HTC, and Blackberry have also fallen from lofty heights, they have yet to disappear completely.

LG’s current inventory of phones that are already in the market will continue to be available for sale. The company will also continue to provide software updates to its phones “for a period of time which will vary by region.”

The firm didn’t specify what will be the fate of its rollable phone or the device dubbed LG Rainbow. Our best guess is that these won’t make it to market in light of the latest development.

LG’s smartphone business has been suffering consecutive losses for a while now. Last year, the brand shipped 23 million phones compared to 256 million shipped by local competitor Samsung, according to Counterpoint Research.

The company even reportedly tried to sell the mobile division to Vietnam’s Vingroup JSC and Germany’s Volkswagen AG. However, those talks reportedly fell through, forcing the company to scrap the loss-making entity.

“Moving forward, LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G to help further strengthen competitiveness in other business areas. Core technologies developed during the two decades of LG’s mobile business operations will also be retained and applied to existing and future products,” LG noted in today’s announcement.

The company expects to wind down its smartphone business completely by July 31. However, it says that the inventory of some existing models might still be available after that.

LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region, it added.

In better times, it was early to market with a number of cell phone innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras and was once in 2013 the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung and Apple.

But later, its flagship models suffered from both software and hardware mishaps which combined with slower software updates saw the brand steadily slip in favour. Analysts have also criticised the company for lack of expertise in marketing compared to Chinese rivals.

Currently its global share is only about 2 percent. It shipped 23 million phones last year which compares with 256 million for Samsung, according to research provider Counterpoint.