LG announced on April 5, local time, that it will close its deficit smartphone business globally. The former Pioneer brand will now focus its resources on “growth areas” such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robots, AI and B2B solutions, platforms and services.
LG announced in a statement that the board of directors approved the decision. This unsurprising move follows the company’s January 2021 statement to re-direct its smartphone business.
LG, which has long held the third place in the US smartphone market, said it will continue to sell handsets until it runs out of stock and will provide software support for existing smartphones for a period of time, depending on the region.
According to LG, the future of smartphone business employees will be decided at the regional level. In January 20-21, it was reported that the company was considering selling its smartphone business.
Meanwhile, in the same month, LG also announced that it will release a retractable smartphone by the end of 2021. But every effort to keep the business seems to have failed.
“LG will continue to leverage its expertise in mobile to develop mobile-related technologies such as 6G to strengthen its competitiveness in other business fields. LG’s 20-year mobile business, the core technology that we have cultivated will be maintained and will be utilized in existing and future products.”
The poor performance of LG’s smartphone business has been widely known for several years. Like countless other Android smartphone makers, LG has struggled to turn things around.
Today, some smartphone makers rely heavily on software services such as mobile payments to make money. LG launched its mobile payment service in 2017, two years after Samsung announced Samsung Pay, but LG’s portfolio of services remained much smaller.