LG says it's closing its smartphone business worldwide

LG Velvet back panel

Post-obit weeks of rumours, LG has officially confirmed that it's endmost its smartphone business organization.

The South Korean tech giant says that the decision to go out the smartphone industry was canonical by the company's board of directors before today.

"LG's strategic determination to go out the incredibly competitive mobile phone sector will enable the visitor to focus resource in growth areas such as electrical vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence and business concern-to-business organization solutions, besides as platforms and services," said LG in a recent press release.

LG says that its current smartphone inventory will continue to be sold worldwide and that it volition nevertheless provide service support/software updates for a "period of time which will vary by region." In the Q&A portion of its press release, LG says information technology "will proceed to provide service parts for a minimum of two years from the phone buy date." Further, Android eleven and Android 12 updates volition still come to "select LG smartphones."

Regarding layoffs, the company says that "details related to employment will be determined at the local level."

The company says that leaving the smartphone industry volition let information technology to focus on "6G" and that information technology volition allow information technology to strengthen its competitiveness in other business areas.

While LG's loftier-end devices were in one case on par with Samsung'due south flagship offerings, the company'south recent smartphones have struggled to compete in the increasingly competitive market.

Reports surrounding LG leaving the smartphone industry have been swirling for several weeks at present. A report from late January via The Korea Herald indicated that LG was "considering all possible measures, including sale, withdrawal or downsizing of the smartphone business concern." Final week, a study emerged from The Korea Times suggesting that LG would make an official announcement regarding the hereafter of its smartphone business on April 5th.

It's more than probable this too means that the fascinating-looking rollable smartphone that LG showed off at CES 2021 has been cancelled every bit well. The final significant LG smartphone to release in Canada was the LG Velvet. While the device was generally well-received for its minimalist pattern, information technology suffers from poor photographic camera performance and only features a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 processor.

LG expects the "wind downwardly" of its mobile phone business to be completed by July 31st.