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LG to Close Mobile Phone Business Worldwide

AleksandarK

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LG Electronics Inc. (LG) announced that it is closing its mobile business unit. The decision was approved by its board of directors earlier today. LG's strategic decision to exit the incredibly competitive mobile phone sector will enable the company to focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence and business-to-business solutions, as well as platforms and services.

Current LG phone inventory will continue to be available for sale. LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region. LG will work collaboratively with suppliers and business partners throughout the closure of the mobile phone business. Details related to employment will be determined at the local level.


Moving forward, LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G to help further strengthen competitiveness in other business areas. Core technologies developed during the two decades of LG's mobile business operations will also be retained and applied to existing and future products.

The wind down of the mobile phone business is expected to be completed by July 31 although inventory of some existing models may still be available after that.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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Yeah let focus on making them sweet OLED panels.
Got my LG OLED CX recently and it's brilliant for gaming.
 

bug

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Unfortunately, they won't be missed. The last noteworthy thing they did was the G2 :(
 
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It is really silly that in the display panel field, LG is competing against Samsung who champions LCD instead of OLED. LG is one of those companies that did things the old fashioned way. Quality above quantity. It is painful to see unreimbursed potential...
 
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I love LG innovative phone design from the G2 to the modular G5. They the company that kept the headphone jack plus amp until the end and also sd card. The biggest let down owning their phone is the software wise. It is ok but it is just not as good and as featured supported than Samsung. Perhaps in the korean market and korean apps they work better but overseas software support is a let down for them. Sadly I now transition to a Samsung now.
 

ixi

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It is really silly that in the display panel field, LG is competing against Samsung who champions LCD instead of OLED. LG is one of those companies that did things the old fashioned way. Quality above quantity. It is painful to see unreimbursed potential...

Why Samsung is competing in TV with LG? Because they know how to advertise their stuff on tv. People believe that QLED is better/superior than OLED even if QLED isnt close enough to OLED...
 

TheLostSwede

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Unfortunately, they won't be missed. The last noteworthy thing they did was the G2 :(
LG made a lot of decent phones and had some cool ideas. Sadly they weren't good at supporting their devices and they were often too expensive, which is most likely why they've done poorly.
I would buy an LG any day over any of the Chinese brands though.

Yeah let focus on making them sweet OLED panels.
Got my LG OLED CX recently and it's brilliant for gaming.
Two entirely different parts of LG though, that have pretty much nothing to do with each other.

Anyone wondering why LG has taken so long to finally drop their phone business, read up on the Korean Chaebols and you'll see it's a family pride/status thing.
Samsung, Hyundai and LG are the top three chaebols in Korea.
 
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Best decision.
 
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LG made a lot of decent phones and had some cool ideas. Sadly they weren't good at supporting their devices and they were often too expensive, which is most likely why they've done poorly.
I would buy an LG any day over any of the Chinese brands though.

If not for US sanction, Huawei would have surpassed Samsung, bought a Huawei Mate20 for my wife a while ago and everything about it was better than competing Samsung phone (I had like 5 samsung phones and was considered switching to Huawei)
 
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It is really silly that in the display panel field, LG is competing against Samsung who champions LCD instead of OLED. LG is one of those companies that did things the old fashioned way. Quality above quantity. It is painful to see unreimbursed potential...
QLED branding was NV levels of brilliant despicable FUD.
You have to struggle to figure if shit has FALD and if yes, how many zones, it is all smoke and mirrors.

People tend to think it's the same shit.

The most embarrassing part is that price on those things is in the same ballpark.
 
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Samsung is going down the QD-OLED path, purportedly. We just have to wait a bit for it.
https://www.quantumdots-info.com/


Personally, I'm really looking forward to μLED. iirc that's still a good half decade away though.
 
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If not for US sanction, Huawei would have surpassed Samsung, bought a Huawei Mate20 for my wife a while ago and everything about it was better than competing Samsung phone (I had like 5 samsung phones and was considered switching to Huawei)
Sorry, I can't support China more than I have to.
Haven't had a Samsung Phone since the Galaxy S3. I loathe their UI on top of Android.
Got an Asus Zenfone 6 now, had an HMD/Nokia 8 prior to that.
 

hat

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LG made some pretty decent phones, but the mobile market is pretty oversaturated as it is. Might be the smart move for them.
 

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Cant say im surprised. they've really backed out of the tablet market as well.

If any company should have shutdown, It should have been Nokia. LG on the other hand has had big contracts to make google Nexus devices.

They seem to have some crazy ideas for phone designs but dont really have good software support. I was stuck on 4.1 or 4.2 for a very very long time after buying their devices and even then they updated us to 4.4 then ended support when new devices were already coming out with android 7 or 8.

their tablets were pretty decent for the money too back then.
 

bug

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Cant say im surprised. they've really backed out of the tablet market as well.
Besides Samsung (and a handful of smaller players), everybody ha backed out of the tablets market.
Which is rather unfortunate, because Samsung's idiotic persistence in doubling each and every standard Android application and refusal to implement adoptable storage, leaves us with really mediocre devices.
But this confirms what I have said when tablets were first launched: between smartphones getting increasingly bigger, laptops becoming increasingly more portable and tablets' inability to completely replace any of those, the market for tables is niche by design.
 
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LG is in the same position as Sony, only focus on the high end and completely ignore the mainstream to lower end. Majority of Chinese brands departed from mainstream and then rose to dominate, they didn't had difficulty from well known establishment.
Their latest phone, G8, is excellent in terms of durability and features, storage expansion, headphone jack while maintaining its IP68 rating. Disadvantages that never change however, software updates that are slower than Samsung, and support that only lasts a year. $500+ phones that "obsolete" after 1 year doens't put them on "higher end".
 
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This is sad to see. Their latest phone, Velvet, was a great overall value. Incredible display and average power and decent battery life for a budget price. Mine recently even got the upgrade to Android 11 and is getting regular security updates so the support is there.
 

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Besides Samsung (and a handful of smaller players), everybody ha backed out of the tablets market.
Which is rather unfortunate, because Samsung's idiotic persistence in doubling each and every standard Android application and refusal to implement adoptable storage, leaves us with really mediocre devices.
But this confirms what I have said when tablets were first launched: between smartphones getting increasingly bigger, laptops becoming increasingly more portable and tablets' inability to completely replace any of those, the market for tables is niche by design.

You can say the same about any mobile phone vendor. They'll always have their own bloatware apps regardless. The loss of Huawei also left quite a sizeable gap in the market. Market is now pretty much dominated by Samsung and Apple. Xiaomi are trying to muscle in though but their tablets havent seen the same boom in popularity as their mobile phones but i think thats primarily due to distribution. They just arent available here in the UK just yet where as they are running promos on amazon and their own website every other week for their mobile phones and people are just scooping them up.
 

bug

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You can say the same about any mobile phone vendor.
Otoh, I can't think of any other vendor that installs so many doppelganger apps and doesn't let you uninstall them.
Also, Idk whether I have hit a bug or this is by design, but every time I update an app that I have moved to SD, it comes back to the internal storage, so I have to move it again. Very, very frustrating UX.
 
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LG really seemed behind the times. They were pushing carrier locked phones in an age of unlocked devices, they ignored the midrange market when it was on fire, their software sucked, their software updates sucked, they had serious quality control issues that eroded confidence in the company, and really had no clear direction or design philosophy.

They had been shown the way with the nexus 5, 5x, and 9. Simple, well made devices without garbage UI or software. They ignored this advice and tried to out gimmick Samsung, which is just a losing proposition unless you are apple (or chinese).

RIP LG phones. Honestly thought HTC would bow out before you did.
This is sad to see. Their latest phone, Velvet, was a great overall value. Incredible display and average power and decent battery life for a budget price. Mine recently even got the upgrade to Android 11 and is getting regular security updates so the support is there.
What killed THAT phone (and the LGG8) was their absolute refusal to sell an unlocked model. I'm not buying a carrier locked phone in 2021, when we can switch carriers at the drop of a hat.
 
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LG really seemed behind the times. They were pushing carrier locked phones in an age of unlocked devices, they ignored the midrange market when it was on fire, their software sucked, their software updates sucked, they had serious quality control issues that eroded confidence in the company, and really had no clear direction or design philosophy.

They had been shown the way with the nexus 5, 5x, and 9. Simple, well made devices without garbage UI or software. They ignored this advice and tried to out gimmick Samsung, which is just a losing proposition unless you are apple (or chinese).

RIP LG phones. Honestly thought HTC would bow out before you did.

What killed THAT phone (and the LGG8) was their absolute refusal to sell an unlocked model. I'm not buying a carrier locked phone in 2021, when we can switch carriers at the drop of a hat.
Certainly didn't help the Velvet on sales world wide but here in Canada unlocked phone's from non Chinese manufacturers are typically carrier offered and locked including the Velvet. And of course the cost of phones from the big manufacturers can also be very prohibitive here. The phone regardless was still a decent budget option.
 
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LG was already spread thin, they had a hand in everything they could, phones just didnt pan out for them, I expected something like this sooner, I expect one or two other phone manufacturers to quietly go bye-bye too this year or next.
 
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