Tech Economy
The parent company – LG Electronics – was established in 1958 and has since led the way into the advanced digital era thanks to the technological expertise acquired by manufacturing many home appliances such as Air Conditioners, radios and TVs.
However, the smartphone has struggled to maintain prominence in the competitive mobile market.
LG was once the third-largest handset manufacturer globally. In 2009, just before the smartphone market started taking off, LG sold nearly 120 million feature phones.
In 2010, LG entered the smartphone market in earnest with the launch of Android-based smartphone Optimus. However, this entry came relatively later than Apple and Samsung’s, according to this report.
A report in The Korea Times, indicates that the Company will announce that it will pull out of the smartphone market on April 5 after failing to turn a profit these past few years.
“LG Electronics appears to have decided to pull out of its money-losing smartphone business and entered into a transition process to relocate its mobile communications employees to other business units,” The Korea Times said.
The company attempted to find a buyer, allegedly entertaining interest from Volkswagen and Vietnam’s Vingroup JSC, but the talks seemingly didn’t pan out.
As recently as January, the spokesperson said the company wasn’t shutting down its mobile business. And, in fact, there were reports LG was working on new devices for this year, even teasing a rollable smartphone a few months back. As it was tentatively called, the LG Rollable was expected to offer a “unique resizable screen” that was capable of transforming.
If the Company is indeed shuttering its mobile business, it means whatever it had planned for 2021 has been scrapped. LG’s absence from the Android market would be a huge loss for the industry because it has come up with many great ideas. LG also helped create legendary phones like the Nexus 5 and Pixel 2 XL.
“All we can say is that every possibility is open,” a company spokesperson told The Korea Times. “Although we cannot confirm that right now, we will announce the specific direction of our mobile communications business.”
This news originally appeared on Tech Economy.
