According to the latest announcement, LG is now officially leaving the Chinese market in 2018. Scroll down for more information on this breaking news!
LG is officially leaving the Chinese smartphone market!
Just last week, LG has officially released their financial report of 2017. In details, the Korean brand reached $55.4 billion in revenue last year. Moreover, the Home Appliances and TVs generated the highest revenue in the company’s history. However, there was a significant loss of Mobile business. Their mobile division saw an operating loss of $192.33 million during the fourth quarter. This is a sad sign for this Korean brand, as LG only shown one profitable quarter in the last two years.
As a result, LG seems to have made a significant decision for 2018. The Korean brand is reportedly leaving the Chinese smartphone market. So what is the reason behind? Firstly, they only sold a total of 160,000 handsets in China during 2016. Moreover, the Korean brand now holds less than one percent of China’s smartphone market share. Secondly, they now faces many strong competitors, both Chinese and non-Chinese brand like Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo or even Apple and Samsung.
On the other hand, this Korean brand seemed to prepare for their departure a long time ago. Previously, the Korean manufacturer has decided not to launch their two flagships: G6 and V30 in China last year. Furthermore, the previous smartphone released in China was the G5 SE in 2016. On the other hand, their next flagship – G7 is now undergoing a revision on the order of the CEO Jo Seong-jin. At the CES 2018 event, he shared “We will unveil new smartphones when it is needed. But we will not launch it just because other rivals do.”
What is going to happen to LG in 2018?
This February, we now have confirmation from an LG official that the Korean brand is going to leave the China market starting this year. On the other hand, they can now focus on other important markets like Korean, US or European. We will keep update on LG’s plan once more details come out, stay tuned!