Will LG Electronics abandon the smartphone market?

According to a report from the Korea Herald, LG Electronics is considering the future of its Smartphone business, and the company's CEO sent a message to staff that says that several options are being considered, including the sale, withdrawal and downsizing the smartphone business.

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

LG's second Explorer phone was to be the world's first rollable smartphone, which LG aimed to release in early 2021. Now the future of this rollable phone is not clear...

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Posted: Jan 25,2021 by Ron Mertens