LG has experimented with different designs for its phones, such as the LG Wing, to attract buyers.
Angela Lang / CNET
LG on Sunday became the latest maker of an incredibly competitive mobile phone sector in a market dominated by Apple, Samsung and growing Chinese manufacturers.
The South Korean company has said it will close its mobile business unit by the end of July. Instead of smartphones, it will focus on smart home products – an area where it is one of the largest suppliers – as well as components of electric vehicles, robotics, artificial intelligence, business-to-business products and other connected devices.
LG’s decision to end its phone business reflects the struggle that many companies in the market are facing. Apple and Samsung have long been the only companies making significant amounts of money from smartphones, and even they have struggled at times. Consumers are holding their phones longer than before and are increasingly looking for cheaper models such as Samsung’s Galaxy A Series instead of his Galaxy S flagship devices.
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LG offers a look at the mobile phone at CES 2021
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Other legacy brands such as BlackBerry and Nokia have experienced their own problems, and neither of the two companies now exist in their original form. HMD sells mobile phones under Nokia brands, while TCL sold phones from BlackBerry before ending the partnership last year. Nokia and BlackBerry, the leaders in the QWERTY phone world, did not move quickly to touchscreen smartphones, which condemned their opportunities in the mobile market. LG has also struggled in the move to smartphones. Although consumers and reviewers generally like the devices, LG did not have the marketing capability of Samsung or the cult of Apple.
In 2007, the year the first iPhone went on sale, LG was the fifth largest phone provider after Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – all companies except Samsung, which are less important players in today’s smartphone market. In the fourth quarter of 2020, LG did not reach the top five when it comes to the world’s largest smartphone vendors. Even Huawei, which faces US sanctions could not get the components needed to build its phones, achieved fifth place. Apple, Samsung and China, Xiaomi and Oppo, topped the top four.
In the last decade, it has become more difficult to get consumers’ attention on mobile devices. LG has been experimenting with innovative designs over the past few years in an effort to attract buyers. The LG Wing has two screensof which one turns on the other. And in January at CES it teased what he had hoped could be the first mobile phone in the world. The device has a screen that extends upwards to create a larger, more tablet-like screen. As Roger Cheng of CNET noted, “the bottom of the phone presumably has a mechanism that stands in the landscape, ignores and folds the screen, similar to how rollable OLED televisions work – but on a smaller scale.”
But with the death of LG’s mobile business comes the end of the predictable phone.
“LG Rollable is no longer part of our product strategy,” LG spokesman Ken Hong told CNET.
LG has said that the current phone stock will continue to sell, and that they will provide service, support and software updates to customers of existing mobile devices for a period, which will vary by region. The US company in the United States has said that additional details about software updates will be provided in the near future.
Meanwhile, the major US service providers have said they will continue to support LG phone users.
An AT&T spokesman said in a statement that the wireless provider is’ aware of LG’s decision to leave the mobile business’, adding that ‘as a commitment to our customers, we will continue to reach out to those LG devices used in our network to support LG make this transition. ‘
The third-largest U.S. airline says it plans to continue selling its existing inventory and “will work closely with LG to determine the next steps.”
LG is likely to lay off some employees, though very likely to move to other parts of LG’s business. It has employees around the world and manufactures its phones in China, Brazil and Vietnam. The company is reusing its facilities to build other products such as TVs, Hong said, but closure is also a possibility.
“LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G to further enhance competitiveness in other business areas,” the company said in a statement. “Core technologies developed over the two decades of LG’s mobile business operations will also be retained and applied to existing and future products.”
CNET’s Eli Blumenthal contributed to this report.