Poor G5 sales cause LG first loss in six years

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LG sold 14.1 million smartphones in the last quarter of 2016. That is an 8 percent decrease from a year earlier. The group wrote red figures in the quarter, mainly because of poor sales of the G5 smartphone.

In addition, high marketing costs to sell the V20 phone were partly responsible for the quarterly loss of 35 billion Korean won, converted 28 million euros. LG announced the V20 in September. Good sales of this device, according to the company, ensured that quarterly turnover increased by 15 percent, although seasonal influences also play a role in a comparison between two quarters. It does not disclose how many smartphones LG has sold in total in 2016. In 2015, it was 59.7 million units and in 2014 it was 59.1 million, writes TechCrunch.

The quarterly loss is largely attributable to LG’s Mobile Communications division. The division’s loss amounted to 467 billion won, or 374 million euros, and was the division’s seventh consecutive quarterly loss. In addition, it was the industry’s biggest loss to date.

LG wants to show a better result in 2017 by releasing a new high-end model while serving the budget market, as it did with the K8 last year. The new high-end model will be the G6, which LG will announce on February 26 and which has an 18:9 screen. Recently, a message appeared that the device has a Snapdragon 821 soc on board instead of the newer 835 version.

LG’s other business units did better and partly absorbed the loss of the mobile branch. One of these parts is Home Entertainment, which includes the TVs. LG did suffer from higher prices for panels, but good sales of OLED and UHD TVs gave the group an increase in turnover. LG’s total sales increased by 1.5 percent to 14.78 trillion won, or 11.93 billion euros.

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