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Android Businesses

New LG CEO Won't Give Up on Smartphone Market, Promises Profitability by 2021 (arstechnica.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the never-gonna-give-you-up dept.
LG is still clinging to its dying smartphone business. The company's new CEO, Kwon Bong-seok, (who was appointed just last month!) promised a return to profitability for LG's mobile division by 2021. From a report: "LG Electronics' mobile business is going to be profitable by 2021," Kwon told The Korea Times. "I can say we can make that happen as LG Electronics will expand our mobile lineup and steadily release new ones attached with some wow factors to woo consumers." Kwon didn't share many details on how he plans to resurrect LG's smartphone business, which has lost money for something like 14 quarters in a row now. When asked by the Korea Times, the site said Kwon "only reiterated LG Electronics' plan to expand the phone lineup." LG sold 19 phone models each in 2019 and 2018, according to GSM Arena's database. In 2014, the last time LG Mobile reliably turned a profit, the company produced 44 phone models -- is this correlation or causation?
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New LG CEO Won't Give Up on Smartphone Market, Promises Profitability by 2021 More

New LG CEO Won't Give Up on Smartphone Market, Promises Profitability by 2021

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  • Every LG smartphone I've had has died within 4-5 months. I take good care of my phones and I simply avoid LG hardware because the quality is abysmal. They are going to have to improve greatly to win business from me again. So I can't say I am surprised at their financial losses.

    • The earlier phones such as the G3/G4/G5 had a lot of problems primarily caused by power hungry processors creating a lot of heat. Hoeeever they really have worked out many of the problems those phones had. The new phones will make you forget those days they are quite good. Additionally, LG has been running a website promotion giving new phone owners a free second year warranty on their phones.

      • I still have my G2, it functions perfectly except for being orphaned in terms of updates. Had to replace the battery eventually. Best mobile keyboard in the history of the universe.

        • I was really happy with my g4, and still use it as a spotify streamer over wifi at home, but their hardware problems have hurt them. The g4s failing because of bad thermal properties around the cpu and the warranty claims on nearly all the phones hurt the carriers erough that they wont carry their phones anymore. I'd probably have gotten a g6 if i could have had carrier warranty. Also the way they dropped G4 support and left phone users with vulnerable phones due to android security holes really burnt me to
    • I've had my LG V20 for about 3 years now. Expandable storage, removable battery, and high quality audio through the headphone jack. Best phone I've ever owned.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by bjwest ( 14070 )

        Same here. I've replaced the battery in my V20 three times. Without the ability to change the battery, I'd be on my third phone in the same time period at great cost to me. I truly believe manufacturers are switching to non replaceable batteries solely to increase sales. I can deal with a few screws and sticky tape to get the battery replaced, but they're going out of their way to make it impossible to remove the battery without damaging the battery, which could cause an explosion, or the unit itself.

        LG

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Big Boss ( 7354 )

          So much this. I am still running a V20 for the same reasons. I would like to move, but nobody makes a device that isn't disposable due to the battery being non-replaceable. Everyone is making the same damn thing, poorly. We don't need more all-glass glued together stuff. That market is cornered by Samsung and Apple. Do something different to stand out.

          Someone doing these would get my money today.

          Replaceable battery at least 5000 mAh stock. This can require screws removed etc.. No glue or solder. And commit

          • Right.

            I really like my Samsung Galaxy S7 Active, for its solid design.

            No camera bump, and basically the phone's exterior is a built-in hardcore phone case. But taking up less space.

            Negatives: first, the extra button on the side to activate its fitness program. Fortunately, though, it's programmable so I changed it to start a game instead.

            Second, though they have upgraded the other S7s in the line to, I think, Android 9 or 10, my Active is still stuck at 7.

            Otherwise I have been very satisfied.
          • The second screen and wide angle camera were awesome too. But the swappable battery is really something ib miss from my V20. I always carried a charged spare. So much easier than quick charging or using power banks.

      • Also bad reception and screen burn-in. I am not happy with my V20 at all.

    • My Nexus 4 only aged out because of crappy Google touch screen driver. Otherwise solid as a rock. Maybe I will bring it back to life with a 3rd party rom. The nonremovable battery is an annoyance, but not hard to replace given proper tools.

    • Ain't that the truth.

    • The quality is amazing, i'm still using my LG G3 today. (Rooted with Android 9 installed)
      And i know others who loved their G3 back in the day.
      I do recall there were some minor production quality issues for some people, but the phones which didn't have those issues were like tanks and lasted for ages.

  • LG V series ThinQ phones are excellent. (Score:3)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @05:35PM (#59608042)

    These phones have everything including a headphone jack and branded quad dad audio. I believe the quality to be on par with Samsung.

    • The Quad DAC actually measures better than many high quality desktop DACs. It really is impressive.

      What isn't impressive is the pace of updates. If they invested more there, I'd champion them all over the place.

    • I am holding a V7 ThinQ in my hands right now, and I'm my opinion it's a steaming pile of garbage, that is constantly requiring reboots to stop lagging and only gets security updates twice per year.

      This is the first LG phone I have had in years. And it will also be my last. The only reason I got it was because the bribed me with a free TV; a devil's bargain I never should have made.

      • Are you sure it's a "V7?" LG did not make a V7 they did make a G7 though. The G7 depending on when it was bought should still be covered by a warranty and was eligible for the additional free year warranty.

        I don't work for LG, though I can attest to the quality of the V30 phone as I own it. I would recommend people obtain the V40 as it likely will see an OS update from Android 9 whereas the V30 likely will not. Though it could be a very good value buy on the used market.

    • I would definitely by LG again assuming decent value, current but not bleeding edge hardware, and above all, a headphone jack.

    • The quality and value are far far beyond Samsung. Samsung, IMHO, is a lie. They captured the market of "what isn't Apple", so they get the accolades and (fake) reviews. But having owned Samsung vs. LG, it's not even close.

      (Owner of V40 and Samsung Note 8)

      With that said, bring back the IR-blaster and you're golden LG. My old HTC One M8 had it build into the top (better placement LG) power button. Very very useful (don't have a remote, give me 10 seconds... presto).
    • Not this dumb bullshit again. Not enough customers want them, not enough customers care about some bullshit "headphone jack" technology that is outdated and useless for the vast majority of the population. You know what IS selling like hot cakes: Airpods. The numbers don't lie. Math does not lie. Reality does not lie.

  • and make up the margins in increased market share.

    A nice generic (no uninstallable apps) 6 inch android phone with 128GB of memory, removable battery, sd slot and 3.5 inch headphone jack for like $100 would be swell

  • Too many critical QC issues, made worse by one of the most customer-agnostic support organizations I've ever had the displeasure to interact with. Love their phones, hate the issues and the company.

  • What's their plan? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @05:51PM (#59608130)
    He can talk about all he wants, but the big problems I see are (a) LG phones have a reputation for poor quality and (b) LG doesn't seem to have a strategy for how to position its phones. Until they solve these issues, people are going to see LG phones as crappy because of (a) and pointless because of (b). He needs to show a strategy for how he plans to turn around their phone business, and judging by TFS, it doesn't look like he has one. "Adding features" could mean anything and likely will mean nothing, and expanding their mobile lineup is the opposite of what they need to do. They need fewer phones that are more strategically positioned (e.g., obvious budget phone, obvious midrange phone, obvious flagship phone), not more with less purpose. And the offerings they provide need to actually be competitive.

    I don't see LG turning their phone business around. Maybe it'll happen, but their CEO's statement doesn't give me any reason to believe it will. Competition in the phone industry is pretty stiff and LG just kind of seems like they're clueless.

    • That was what I was thinking stop with all the different models and make just a quality low, mid, and high end phone at a competitive price.

    • They can position their phones in a dumpster. Everything I've ever bought that was made by LG was crap.

    • Yeah, I don't get the appeal of having lots of phone models. I think it just confuses people and I'm not sure it benefits the company in any way. If it was up to me I'd do this:
      • 3 or 4 phones per year, tiered by price
      • Consistent naming of each tier of phone through the years. e.g.: Bugdet is Lite n, next year Lite n+1 ... Same at every tier.
      • Good support: Firmware updates for a long time, hardware made to last, removable batteries
    • Partnership with Huawei and ZTE. The fools paid the Broadcom taxes and had or will have Android locked in. Thus they must move to a new supply chain, AND offer open source / less lockdown and non-upgradability. If they play the same-same game they will loose for sure. The sticking poinr will be the Chinese wanting to include binary blobs.
  • Rebrand? Stop making devices by and for monkeys? Both?

  • They launch a new smartphone; you are impressed and want to buy it right away; you visit their site; read about it; click "buy" - You are then directed to some carriers in your region; your carrier or preferred carrier isn't among the listed carriers and there's no plan to be included.

    You call LG but fail to get anywhere because the sales folks just cannot help folk in your position - You give up!

    Contrast that to [some] Chinese phone OEMs. They launch a new phone together with a website that can actually

  • I've owned a number of LG electronics products and they all worked well for me. They make a modern dumb TV, so I naturally love them.

  • Go 3rd world:
    HDR.
    Good sound. Headphone jack.
    Battery that can be changed. Support for battery changes.
    Get the display and video color quality up for new series and movies.
    Get any notch, camera to a location away from any location thats for GUI, movies.
    Low cost, good looks... sell on what was HDR ready, price ... without the fashion prices of a designed in CA tax...
    A CPU, GPU that can play back HDR content that social media reviewers like to test.... pass any HDR like support test when tested o

  • As others have said, their earlier products had reliability issues. They also need to promise updates for 3-4 years on all models of devices. I tend to keep phones for at least 3 years now unless it's a dud and I need it to get security patches at least.

    I've looked at previous LG phones and carriers tend to push like one or two models and nothing mid sized and fast. It's always a phablet and a really cheap model. The only player in the mid size space with android is Sony. They usually have some feature g

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