LG's smartphone division has been a thorn in their side for years, hemorrhaging money seemingly no matter what the company tries to do. Gimmick after gimmick hasn't saved them, and even a desperate attempt at launching a software update center in order to roll out frequent updates proved fruitless. At CES, however, the company feels that the tide is turning and has vowed to make its business profitable by 2021. Speaking at CES, the company's new CEO, Kwon Bong-seok, said "LG Electronics mobile business is going to be profitable by 2021. 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." This isn't the first time that the company has attempted to rethink their strategy when it comes to mobile.

Kwon never elaborated as to how the company intends to do that but reiterated its commitment to expanding its smartphone lineup even further. The company has struggled massively in recent years, even earning only a third of the expected operating profit that analysts had projected for the fourth quarter, ending on December 31st of 2019. LG said it expected to generate 98.6 billion won, while market analysts had previously pegged the company for a much higher figure of 270 billion won. Kwon didn't really dwell on the company's undercutting of expected operating profitability. Earlier in the year, LG had even moved its smartphone production from South Korea to Vietnam, in a bid to cut costs.

Regardless, the company should soon publish its financial reports for 2019, and it will be possible to see just how realistic of a goal that may be. LG also talked about the impracticality of 8K TVs and talked more about its rollable TV that is expected to launch later this year.


Source: The Korea Times | Via: Android Police