LG Calls it Quits, To Close Mobile Phone Business
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 5, 2021 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- LG
- Smartphones
This morning, LG issued a press release that announced the board of directors had decided to close down the conglomerate’s mobile phone business. The news is unfortunate, however isn’t too surprising given the mobile division had been accruing continuous operational losses over the last 6 years, greatly denting the company’s financials.
SEOUL, April 5, 2021 — LG Electronics Inc. (LG) announced that it is closing its mobile business unit. The decision was approved by its board of directors earlier today.
LG’s 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, as well as platforms and services.
LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region. LG will work collaboratively with suppliers and business partners throughout the closure of the mobile phone business. Details related to employment will be determined at the local level.
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 had been one of the major mobile pioneers in the feature phone market, and 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 who used Samsung Display OLED panels.
At one point, LG had plans to deploy their own in-house design “Nuclun” SoCs into their mobile devices, announcing their partnership with Intel Custom Foundry to produce a leading-edge design on Intel’s 10nm process node. Unfortunately, the project burned to the ground along with Intel’s 10nm struggles, with the chips never seeing the light of day.
LG’s latest device attempts in the form of the V60 and the VELVET were actually greater leaps for the company’s designs as well as executions, however all coming too late, with a continuing problem of availability of the devices, as LG still ran with an availability model of working closely with carriers and releasing devices only in markets where carriers decided they were interested in supporting that device.
The company will be winding down its mobile business through July 31st, refocusing its resources into other divisions of the conglomerate.
Source: LG Press Release
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sonny73n - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link
Spot on!meacupla - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
I'm sorry, but I'm not in the market for $600+ phonessonny73n - Wednesday, April 7, 2021 - link
Chinese phones aren't super interesting but they're priced right and they have busted the fake values of overpriced Korean phones. I'm repairing a Samsung S20 for someone right now. I can't believe that piece of junk with terrible design and terrible softwares costs $1200. Not in a million years that I would trade my $430 Poco F2 Pro for that garbage.Psyside - Sunday, April 11, 2021 - link
"I'm repairing a Samsung S20 for someone right now. I can't believe that piece of junk with terrible design and terrible softwares costs $1200. Not in a million years that I would trade my $430 Poco F2 Pro for that garbage"If Samsung flagships are garbage, you need to find new job.
Mday - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
There were rumors floating for the past 5 years. But the writing was on the wall based on their last phone.kmmatney - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
I had an LG phone once - the hardware was great, but the lack of software updates made me get rid, even before my contract was up. It was my only Android phone, and only bought it for the larger screen (was just before iPhone 6 came out). There were software bugs with email, and the battery life was unpredictable - sometimes the phone would run hot and drain battery for no reason. Maybe later phones were better, but I would never buy another LG phone. it's a shame, as the hardware was really good. I tried rooting it and installing other versions of Android, but that just fixed some problems and created other ones. It was a relief to go back to the iPhone - I can't control every aspect of my phone, but at least things generally work.brucethemoose - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
Exactly. I would've bought into the V series myself (for the sweet audio out and OLED, amongst other things), but LG's software reputation was a huge turn off.I suspect LG's phone division would still be kicking if they stayed closer to stock Android.
andrewaggb - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
I had a G7 Thinq and I liked it but the camera was awful. So I went back to samsung. The speakers on the G7 were pretty good though (better than samsungs in my opinion).Silver5urfer - Monday, April 5, 2021 - link
Nope, the LG UX had everything that it needs, Up until Oreo the OS was having all necessary features, it never lags at all, granted I rooted V30, that phone had best optimization than V40 and up. Maybe V60 is more polished now.Samsung on the other hand has too much it's useful stuff but they shove a lot of bloatware garbage, With Stock Android it's barebone crap, you don't even have any damn thing to customize or tweak it's all stupid stock. Can you even change lockscreen ? Nope. That's pure rubbish. HTC also had solid Sense UI esp during M7 and M8 era. Stock was always damn boring, tried it many times, old Cyanogen Mod had more options than LOS but everything is always better than Google Pixel skin.
Even LOS and Custom ROMs have tons of options and root nets you Gravity Box and Xposed, with Xposed there was a mod to bring back the KK era Lockscreen widget mod too. It's now not updated sadly as official Xposed is no more, Rovo went MIA and EdXposed is still thriving though.
grant3 - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
Which is unfortunate. I don't want an "interesting" phone, I want a phone that is so competent that it bores me into forgetting it exists.It feels like I'm in the minority; it seems that what attracts consumer money is fragile glass bodies, rounded screens that are harder to use, and lost features like headphone jacks & memory slots.