LG walks away from the mobile front

Nexus 5X, 2015. © LG/Google.

The South Korean company announced that it would definitively give up manufacturing smart phones starting July 31. To be frank, its mobile-phone expedition launched twelve years ago wasn’t faring well. In fact, LG’s mobile division experienced 23 consecutive quarters in the red, and its last profitable year dates back to 2015. In early 2020, Kwon Bong-seok, then new CEO of LG Electronics, promised that the struggling division would round the bend by 2021. That didn’t happen, so the ax fell.

The Korean media reports that LG considered selling the business, but couldn’t find a buyer. There were some highlights, such as the Nexus series developed in partnership with Google. But with unfortunate episodes such as products unsuited to the market, defective devices and poor performance compared to what Samsung has to offer, LG's mobile division is far from a success story. Following this announcement, expected releases such as the LG Rollable will likely be canceled.

BlackBerry, Nokia, Motorola, Panasonic, Toshiba, Dell, Ericsson, among others … countless casualties on the mobile-device front.

⇨ The Verge, Jon Porter, “LG is quitting the smartphone business.”

2021-04-05