The Fate of 'LG Phones' Without an Owner... Eyes on the Board Meeting on the 5th

Expected to be announced at LG Electronics board meeting on the 5th
High possibility of 'complete withdrawal'
Issues of reallocating 3,700 employees and
Interest in smartphone patents and core technology utilization plans

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] The fate of LG smartphones is expected to be officially announced at the board meeting on the 5th. Although the market is already highly anticipating a 'complete withdrawal' from the business, the issues of reallocating the approximately 3,700 employees and the direction for utilizing core technologies and patents remain uncertain.

According to industry sources on the 1st, LG Electronics is expected to hold a board meeting on the 5th of this month to finalize and announce the future business plan of the Mobile Communications (MC) Business Division, which is responsible for the smartphone business.

Within the industry, the withdrawal rumor has already become a foregone conclusion. A securities industry official said, "Discussions about selling the business took place, but as far as I know, there was no direct progress," adding, "Since then, there have been no special talks in the market, so everyone is just waiting for the official announcement."

It is also known that LG Electronics' behind-the-scenes negotiation partners changed several times. Negotiations with the most likely candidates, such as Vietnam's Vingroup and Germany's automobile group Volkswagen, reportedly fell through due to mismatched conditions. Vingroup also considered acquiring the U.S. business but decided to enter the market directly. There were even foreign media reports that LG was exploring acquisition talks with an African smartphone company.

The market views the possibility of maintaining the MC Business Division as slim, given the cumulative losses exceeding 5 trillion won over 23 quarters. LG Electronics acknowledged in its audit report, "Despite strenuous efforts such as launching innovative products to improve the smartphone business structure, we failed to achieve meaningful sales growth and profitability improvement." The development of the 'Rainbow' project, announced as a strategic product for the first half of the year, and the next form factor 'Rollable' have effectively been halted.

Currently, LG Electronics is internally discussing the reallocation of related personnel. The personnel reallocation is likely to proceed immediately after the business policy is finalized and shared within the company at the April board meeting. Approximately 3,700 employees belonging to the existing MC Business Division will be reassigned within the first half of this year to other business divisions or affiliates such as LG Uplus, LG Energy Solution, and LG Magna e-Powertrain, which is scheduled to launch in July. In this process, LG Electronics is expected to internalize the patents it holds for the smartphone business and pursue synergy creation with future businesses.

An industry insider said, "I heard that a significant portion of the personnel in LG Electronics' MC Business Division are office workers rather than developers," adding, "Existing employees at affiliated companies may also have concerns regarding this large-scale personnel movement."

An LG Electronics official stated, "Nothing has changed at this point. No specific direction will be announced until the official announcement."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.