The South Korean company LG Electronics has decided to close its smartphone division internationally after posting multi-million dollar losses over the past six years. Thus, it will stop manufacturing smartphones to focus its efforts on other areas such as artificial intelligence. The division should be closed by the end of July.
LG is withdrawing “from the extremely competitive mobile phone sector,” it says in a statement. The company wants to focus on other areas. This includes the manufacture of components for electric cars, networked devices, and robots. Smart homes and artificial intelligence were also mentioned.
LG wants to continue to offer the existing stocks of smartphones for sale. The company announced that support and software updates would be offered “for a certain period of time, which varies by region.“
However, LG will not withdraw entirely from the mobile communications sector — the company says it wants to develop “mobile communications technologies such as 6G.“
LG was still one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the early 2010s. Since then, however, the South Korean group has lost a lot of market share.
