LG denies its rollable OLED smartphone project is cancelled

Last month we learned that LG Electronics is considering the future of its Smartphone business - which means LG could end up selling, closing or downsizing its mobile unit.

LG is developing a rollable smartphone, which was reportedly going to ship in early 2021. The future of this exciting rollable OLED device is not clear. Yesterday a report in Korea's Yonhap News suggested that the project is cancelled, although LG Electronics later denied this report and says that the company did not make any decision on 'future phone products' - which of course doesn't mean the project could indeed be cancelled or put on hold in the future.

LG Electronics has lost around $4.5 billion in its smartphone business over the past five years, as competition, especially from China, is strong. In Q3 2020 LG Electronics shipped 6.5 million phones, down from 7.2 million in Q3 2019. LG's global smartphone market share is around 2%.

LG Electronics currently focuses on two main top-end smartphone segments, after it cancelled the G series brand last year - the design-focused LG Velvet smartphones, and the Explorer series of next-generation phone designs and technologies.

The first Explorer phone is the LG Wing, a unique smartphone that sports dual displays in a swivel revolving display design. The Wing sports a main 6.8-inch 2460x1080 flexible LGD P-OLED display and another 3.9-inch 1240x1080 G-OLED (LG's rigid OLED brand) display.

LG Wing photo

Posted: Feb 24,2021 by Ron Mertens