LG announces they are shutting down their mobile phone business

A big move in mobile today, with LG announcing that they will be exiting the mobile business, confirming long standing rumours on the future of LG in mobile.

LG has struggled to record a profit from their mobile business for several years, and in a statement today, LG said that they are closing their mobile business worldwide in order to ‘focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence and business-to-business solutions, as well as platforms and services.’

According to the statement, LG mobile phones will continue to be sold through retailers around the world as inventory dwindles, with the wind down of the mobile phone business is expected to be completed by July 31 said LG.

Existing owners of LG mobile devices will continue to receive service, support and software updates said LG, though the time-frame for that support would vary by region.

LG has been a big name in the mobile industry for many years, though the transition to smartphones wasn’t great with the companies mobile division reporting losses for the past five years. 

Over the past few years LG has stepped back from the mobile market in Australia. Of late we’ve not seen any of their flagship V-series phones, with only lower end K-series models or the mid-range ‘Velvet’ phone launching instead.

There’s been some great LG phones over the years, from phones like the touch-screen Prada, or the GD900 with the transparent, slide out keypad, through to their smartphones like the Optimus G line which I loved, and of course the Nexus 5, which LG built on behalf of Google, and is possibly the most popular Google phone ever.

With LG out of the game, the list of manufacturers you can purchase a phone from these days is dwindling. HTC is essentially out of the game after selling most of their mobile division to Google in 2017, and Sony pulled out of the Australian (and other) mobile market here in Australia some years ago. 

We’ve got some good (and not so good) memories of LG mobile phones over the years, so it’s a shame to see them go, but it’s probably for the best.