Naturally, LG has also been showing off its rollable phone, which was expected to debut at some point this year. That, however, is likely to sit in the ultra-premium tier, and may not be enough to reverse LG’s ever-dwindling market-share which StatCounter said had fallen to 1.7 percent in December 2020. That same month, LG announced that it would outsource the design and construction of its low-end phones to third-party ODM manufacturers.
In his message to employees, Kwon reportedly said that 60 percent of the employees would be re-assigned to other parts of LG’s business. It’s not clear if the other 40 percent will remain in the far smaller mobile arm or let go, although it’s likely that LG will need to retain some of that institutional knowledge. One of the reasons that Sony kept its mobile division running so long is to ensure it can leverage the technologies used in phones for any future frontier of gadgets.
In 2016, Engadget asked when LG would finally lose patience with its loss-making mobile division after it fell into a second, deep slump. The company had successfully managed to claw its way back to profitability after a loss-making 2013, but when it slipped again in 2015, never looked like recovering. After all, LG was unable to compete with (Korean rival) Samsung’s marketing might, or the low costs afforded by Chinese volume players like Huawei and BBK, parent company of Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Realme.
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