After years of rumors and repeated rumors, the future of LG’s smartphone division has again been speculated, as LG CEO Kwon Bong-Seok reportedly sent a message to the team on Wednesday suggesting that there could be major changes in soon.
After years of losses, although the possibility that LG will exit the phone business or sell its smartphone division shouldn’t be a big surprise, this recent news seems a little abrupt arriving less than a week later LG launched a new rollable phone concept at CES 2021.
However, according to information from the Korea Herald, following Kwon’s message about possible “big changes”, another LG employee also explained that “Since competition in the global mobile device market is getting tougher, it’s time for LG to make a cold judgment and the best choice. The company is considering all possible measures, including selling, withdrawing and reducing the size of the smartphone business ”.
Fortunately, Kwon said that “Regardless of any change in the direction of the commercial smartphone operation, employment will be maintained, so there is no need to worry,” with the Korea Herald reporting rumors that about 60% of the team would be transferred or transferred. to other divisions with LG.
Recently, although LG has managed to reduce losses from its phone division by outsourcing the production of low-cost devices to third-party manufacturers, LG’s cell phone division still suffered from a operating loss of $ 124.9 million in the third quarter of 2020.
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In my view, LG Mobile’s struggles come from several different avenues. The first is that, for years, LG has tried to keep pace with its big Korean rival, Samsung, without having the same level of technology or sales needed to sustain and support the development of next-generation phones. In addition, LG phones have long been overwhelmed with lackluster software and support, with efforts like yours Software update center having very little effect or benefit for end users. This generally meant that new versions of Android would take months or sometimes years to reach devices.
And although I really like experimental phones like the LG Wing, it often seemed that LG spent more time throwing ideas on the wall than trying to build a wider range of budget and mid-range devices to better compete with devices like Samsung’s most affordable Galaxy A series phones, which have been some of the best-selling devices worldwide in the past two years.
In many ways, if LG wants to save the smartphone business, it may make sense for LG to take a page from the Motorola and HMD / Nokia manual, focusing on hardware and device design, while switching to a more traditional version of Android instead of LG custom skin. This would potentially allow LG to continue working on developing devices like its mobile phone concept and launching more mid-range devices, while leaving Google to handle more load when it comes to software and operating system updates.
Anyway, although it is still a little early to launch one for LG’s mobile division, it is clear that some major changes are to come.