Of course, LG has also shown its mobile phone, which is expected to debut sometime this year. This, however, is likely to remain at the ultra-premium level and may not be enough to reverse LG’s ever-declining market share, which StatCounter said dropped to 1.7 percent in December 2020. That same month, LG announced that it would outsource the design and construction of its low-cost phones to third-party ODM manufacturers.
In his message to employees, Kwon said that some of the employees – potentially about 60 percent – would be relocated to other areas of LG’s business. It is not clear whether the other 40% will remain in the much smaller mobile arm or let go, although it is likely that LG will need to retain some of that institutional knowledge. One reason Sony has kept its mobile division running for so long is to ensure that it can leverage the technologies used in phones for any future gadget frontier.
In 2016, Engadget asked when LG would finally lose patience with its loss-making mobile division after falling into a second, deep drop. The company managed to recover profitability after a loss-making year in 2013, but when it fell again in 2015, it never seemed to be recovering. After all, LG has not been able to compete with Samsung’s (Korean rival) marketing, or with the low costs offered by major Chinese players like Huawei and BBK, controller of Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Realme.
Update on January 20, 6:30 am: Updated article to clarify the comments made by an LG representative to the Korea Herald.