LG Smartphone Business Hits 5-Year Low; Q2 Shipments Revealed Lowest

It appears previous predictions were right all along. LG Electronics’ smartphone strategy failed to attract more consumers, with the company recording yet another loss in the previous quarter.

Industry tracker Strategy Analytics revealed Thursday that upon compiling data on LG’s smartphone business, it found out that the division hit a five-year low in the recently concluded quarter. In fact, its April-June period was its lowest among the previous 20 quarters.

Yonhap has learned that the South Korean tech company shipped 9.5 million units of its phones worldwide for the second quarter. But compared to its rivals, the figure only accounted for 3 percent of the market. It’s worth noting that when feature phones are included, LG’s market share was only at 2 percent.

Given its disappointing sales, it didn’t come a shock that LG did not make it to the top 10 phone vendors in the world. The company only came in at the 11th spot of the list. This is in spite of LG’s aggressive effort in launching new V-branded handsets and the G7 ThinQ flagship device.

Industry sources once again link LG’s poor performance to the rise of the company’s Chinese rivals. Chinese vendors are actively rolling out price-competitive smartphones that still come with impressive specs and advanced features.

The performance of Chinese manufacturers was so impressive in the second quarter that Huawei passed Apple in terms of global phone shipments. Huawei reportedly shipped 54.2 million phones in the April-June period, which was up by 41 percent than the year earlier. On the other hand, Apple shipped 41.3 million iPhones in the same period.

Xiaomi and Oppo, who are also based in China, made it in the top five vendors based on global shipments. Samsung Electronics remained to be at the top of the list after shipping 71.5 million units. Nevertheless, the fact that Huawei is now the second largest smartphone vendor should be a big concern for Apple and Samsung, who for years remained at the top.

“The importance of Huawei overtaking Apple this quarter cannot be overstated. It is the first time in seven years that Samsung and Apple have not held the top two positions. Huawei’s exclusion from the U.S. has forced it to work harder in Asia and Europe to achieve its goals,” Canalys senior analyst Ben Stanton said.