LG Throws In The Towel On Smartphones After Losing Billions

LG has announced it’s shuttering its smartphone department, pulling out of the market after years of losses and declining market share. Many in the tech industry publicly mourned the loss, remembering how LG pushed the market to innovate.

The company announced the move Monday. It plans to wrap up closure by the end of July, although some of its already existing smartphone models could continue availability, CNN reports.

That availability, and the fate of the company’s employees, will “vary by region” according to The Verge.

“[The] 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," the company said.

The company’s fall from grace came at the hands of both larger competitors and new upstarts squeezing it from below, particularly in China. Once ranked third globally, today LG has fallen below the top seven smartphone manufacturers. Over the years it’s racked up $4.5 billion in losses.

LG still has a strong presence in the US, which will now likely be filled by Samsung.

The closure also cancels plans for new products, including a phone that could be rolled up and turned into a tablet. LG confirmed to CNN Business that a release, previously planned for 2021, would never come.

That kind of unusual display feature was a hallmark of LG’s design philosophy, which brought devices with two screens that could rotate into a T formation (called the LG Wing) and smartphones that pushed the limits of mobile cameras.

"For years, [the] LG smartphone was known for its unconventional and innovative features," Canalys research analyst Shengtao Jin told CNN. "While these features helped LG differentiate itself from other mainstream brands, most consumers did not find much practical value in these features."