UPDATE: Confirmed by LG - It's been nice knowing you, Quad DAC - Sources report that LG is leaving the smartphone market

[D13H4RD]

UPDATE: LG has confirmed the news, though software updates will continue "for a period of time" and current inventory is still on sale. The shutdown aims to be completed by July 31st.

Quote

As widely rumored for the past few weeks, LG officially announced today that its mobile division is shutting down. Software updates and support for existing smartphone owners will continue for a “period of time.”

 

Following this “strategic decision” approved by the board of directors earlier today, the company is focusing on electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence, and business-to-business solutions.

That said, LG will continue developing “mobility-related technologies,” with 6G touted in its press release. It also said “details related to employment will be determined at the local level.” LG expects to complete the shut down of its mobile division by July 31.

9to5Google

 

==ORIGINAL==

Looks like LG may be the next company to pack their bags and exit the smartphone market, joining the likes of many others. Sources have told Korean English daily, The Korea Times, that after the failure to reach a deal with companies like Vingroup to sell the mobile division, LG is looking to shut down its mobile division and leave the smartphone market. These sources have mentioned that LG will be making an official announcement on April 5th regarding the state of their mobile division.

 

LG's mobile division has been operating at a net loss for several years, notably beginning around the time of the LG G4's launch and has not really recovered despite the launch of some compelling handsets. It seems that despite their drive to experiment with wacky new ideas like the LG WING, things haven't really gotten any better.

 

Quote

After suffering operating losses since 2015, LG attempted recently to sell its mobile communications unit, which oversees the smartphone business. The company has reportedly been in negotiations with various interested buyers, including Vietnam's Vingroup, but failed to reach an agreement with any of them.

LG Electronics has considered selling parts of its operations or pulling out of the smartphone business altogether. But it decided recently to pull out of the smartphone business altogether.

"LG has considered various options such as a sale, split sales or pulling out of the smartphone business, but decided recently to pull out of the business," according to industry sources, Thursday, adding that the company will make an official announcement at its board meeting on April 5.

When asked to address such prospects, an LG Electronics official said, "There's nothing to comment on."

Quote

An LG Electronics official commented that the company is considering several strategies for its mobile business including selling off the entire division as well as a split sale and pulling out of the smartphone business entirely. In addition, rumors that LG Mobile employees will be relocated to the home appliances division began circulating on Twitter just a few days ago.

My thoughts

This will undoubtedly be a sad loss for many smartphone enthusiasts who have been using LG devices for features such as its powerful DAC/amp combination for driving high-impedance headphones. Whilst I've never been a huge fan of LG phones after the G4 ended up being a bit of a disaster and the serious misfire of the G5, I felt like with the G6 onwards, they presented a bit of an interesting alternative for a specific kind of customer. But alas, LG's lack of a proper direction and non-existent marketing strategy to the point where you'd think they aren't interested in selling their phones at all kind of dug that hole they've been in.

 

Sources

GSMArena

Korea Times (main source)

[Levent]

About time. They should have sold the phone division after G6.

[flibberdipper]

Good riddance. The last good phone they made in my eyes was the V20, everything since then (especially when it comes to anything that wasn't a flagship) has just been hot fucking garbage.

[divito]

They had some solid devices, but it was always hit or miss overall. Combine that with their software implementations, and it just has never found a good balance for a lot of people.

[D13H4RD]

6 minutes ago, divito said:

They had some solid devices, but it was always hit or miss overall. Combine that with their software implementations, and it just has never found a good balance for a lot of people.

I think the real problem is their general unwillingness to actually sell and market them properly.

 

Almost every LG phone launch has had an awful launch period where there's a long-ass wait between unveil and when you can actually buy them. Combine that with bad marketing and BAD software support, yeah...

[divito]

7 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

I think the real problem is their general unwillingness to actually sell and market them properly.

 

Almost every LG phone launch has had an awful launch period where there's a long-ass wait between unveil and when you can actually buy them. Combine that with bad marketing and BAD software support, yeah...

That's true too. LG was never big on hyping their phones (at least that I ever saw in NA), to where only certain enthusiasts used them because of some of the hardware. Sony had always been pretty bad with that too.

Sometimes it's not even the manufacturer's fault though. Some of the blame lies with the carriers and what they want to push and the deals they get. Especially when there are Chinese options that simply aren't getting any attention or shipments; or the treatment of Huawei severely limiting cost-effective alternatives to major brands.

[D13H4RD]

16 minutes ago, divito said:

Sometimes it's not even the manufacturer's fault though. Some of the blame lies with the carriers and what they want to push and the deals they get. Especially when there are Chinese options that simply aren't getting any attention or shipments; or the treatment of Huawei severely limiting cost-effective alternatives to major brands.

That as well, but then you look at how Samsung has managed to leverage lots of marketing to turn the Galaxy brand into the juggernaut it is.

 

I felt like LG could have done the same if they took it seriously. They're far from a small company.

[Guest]

It's straight up poor marketing and bad design. Can't remember the last LG ad I saw, but every second ad is now Samsung or Apple. 

[Zodiark1593]

The last LG phone I had was the G2, which was fantastic, outside LG taking their sweet time with updates. 

 

My prior phone was the LG Optimus 2X (first dual core smartphone, with the Tegra 2 chip) was pretty hot garbage (sometimes in the literal sense). Software support was probably among the worst ever. The SoC couldn’t decode h.264 properly in hardware, and required a hefty overclock (50%) to play 720P anime in software. And the thing randomly hardlocked in my pocket, and ran the battery dead. I would wonder why my pocket was so hot, pull out my phone, reset it, and it would have less than 10% battery left. 

[suicidalfranco]

sad to see them go even if they haven't released a proper upgrade to my V10

Might be time to consider a DAP

[Commodus]

On top of the mismanagement, I'd say LG was also the textbook example of why you shouldn't insist that phone makers sell phones on razor-thin profit margins. The company's mobile division bled cash if it so much as sneezed, and it devalued its phones by virtually guaranteeing that you'd find them on sale a couple of weeks after launch.

[dizmo]

Eh, no real loss. They've had some good phones over the past few years but it in no way makes up for the loads of mediocre devices they've launched. Not only that, their marketing strategy was almost non-existent. If you don't get phones out there into the hands of reviewers these days, it's real hard to gain any traction. Even MrWhosTheBoss pointed out how hard it was to get review units from them.

 

There's a reason Samsung is so popular. And that reason is marketing.

 

2 hours ago, flibberdipper said:

Good riddance. The last good phone they made in my eyes was the V20, everything since then (especially when it comes to anything that wasn't a flagship) has just been hot fucking garbage.

The V60 was pretty solid. It just didn't get nearly the amount of marketing it needed to be successful.

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

sad to see them go even if they haven't released a proper upgrade to my V10

Might be time to consider a DAP

It'd be an excellent purchase. I can't wait to refresh mine.

[Dabombinable]

Well they've at least released the Android 10 update for their more recent phones - which fixed the glitches and bugs that I was experiencing on my K41S.

[Levent]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Well they've at least released the Android 10 update for their more recent phones - which fixed the glitches and bugs that I was experiencing on my K41S.

Thats what LG does to you. You feel grateful that you got more than 2 updates and one major update. Android 10 was released in September 2019 lol.

[Sarra]

2 minutes ago, Levent said:

Thats what LG does to you. You feel grateful that you got more than 2 updates and one major update. Android 10 was released in September 2019 lol.

At least that's better than Razer. My Razer Phone 2 still has Android 9 on it. It shipped with Android 9 on it. They literally didn't support their crap for an entire revision of Android.

 

It's why I have a Samsung now, though... I don't exactly like it. Bixby can jump off a cliff, and having to sign up for Samsung's bulls*** service just to remap the physical button that it used is a total trash move.

[Dabombinable]

7 minutes ago, Levent said:

Thats what LG does to you. You feel grateful that you got more than 2 updates and one major update. Android 10 was released in September 2019 lol.

I did buy it in early 2020 - and my 2018 Samsung J2 Pro is still on Android 7.1.1 even though it can support Android 8 easily (Samsung dropped the entire J series in 2019 - still has security updates however).

My ancient Asus TF201 and TF700 both have Android 7.1.2 (Katkiss) btw.

[Sarra]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

I did buy it in early 2020 - and my 2018 Samsung J2 Pro is still on Android 7.1.1 even though it can support Android 8 easily (Samsung dropped the entire J series in 2019 - still has security updates however).

My ancient Asus TF201 and TF700 both have Android 7.1.2 (Katkiss) btw.

My Nexus 6 still has android 7 on it. Every time I let it connect via cellular service, it's pretty much instantly compromised. Someone likes running some kind of malware on it, so I just don't ever put a SIM card in it.

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, Sarra said:

My Nexus 6 still has android 7 on it. Every time I let it connect via cellular service, it's pretty much instantly compromised. Someone likes running some kind of malware on it, so I just don't ever put a SIM card in it.

Try a factory reset.

14 minutes ago, Levent said:

Thats what LG does to you. You feel grateful that you got more than 2 updates and one major update. Android 10 was released in September 2019 lol.

Still getting updates:

[Sarra]

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

Try a factory reset.

Within 30 minutes of doing a reset, someone starts remote controlling the device, running stuff, and whatnot.

 

It wasn't worth the aggravation to keep the thing, since if someone messed with my alarms or whatever, I could literally lose my job. I also could not only lose my job but also having severe legal problems if they logged my location while I was working.

 

Hence, that phone no longer has any kind of connectivity to the internet.

[IAmAndre]

I guess Sony is next in line?

[D13H4RD]

8 hours ago, Commodus said:

On top of the mismanagement, I'd say LG was also the textbook example of why you shouldn't insist that phone makers sell phones on razor-thin profit margins. The company's mobile division bled cash if it so much as sneezed, and it devalued its phones by virtually guaranteeing that you'd find them on sale a couple of weeks after launch.

All of that implies to me that LG was never really interested in actually selling phones and getting widespread attention for their products. 

 

Which wouldn't make sense on the surface but keep in mind that LG absolutely has the resources to mount a significant rivalry against Samsung. If they really took it seriously, they could have done it. However, they've really shown that they don't really take marketing and distribution plus the influencer market all that seriously, hence their fate. It also doesn't help that their software update policy is bad (even when Samsung wasn't great, they were much worse), and when the G5 came out, one of their senior employees by the name of Ken went into YouTube comments and posted passive aggressive comments regarding the G5's criticism. 

[Nowak]

Bit of a different take, but it honestly sucks how there are only two real players in the high-end Android space now, Samsung and OnePlus. LG had the chance to be the third and just, blew it.

[Mark Kaine]

I honestly didn't know,  or forgot LG makes smartphones. 

 

15 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

G5

And now I know why. 

 

Motorola makes G series,  not LG 

 

 

[D13H4RD]

3 hours ago, Nowak said:

Bit of a different take, but it honestly sucks how there are only two real players in the high-end Android space now, Samsung and OnePlus. LG had the chance to be the third and just, blew it.

OnePlus was a bit of a marketing masterstroke.

 

They catered to the enthusiast userbase first with affordably priced phones and then leveraged the hype to gain even more notoriety whilst slowly upping the price of their phones closer and closer to flagship territory. 

 

Was it controversial? Oh yes it was, but it worked. 

[Giganthrax]

I'm sorry to hear this. I had two of their Nexus phones and I was really happy with them. One had an incredibly good camera for a 200 euro phone, to the point where I held onto it long after I bought a new phone just to use it as a camera. 

 

Oh well.