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SamMobile Prematurely Labels LGE As Smartphone Irrelevant
SamMobile is often a good source of information, but at times they tend to get the context confused. Recently they compared Samsung and LG’s smartphone business as if they were competitive. LG released more than two dozen Android smartphones over the course of this year, which is about half of Samsung’s 2020 output, model-wise. Apple released 5 in 2020. Samsung is expected to hit around 260 million handset shipments this year, LG will reach 28m.
Figure 1: LGE vs. SEC Smartphone Shipments 2011-2020
SamMobile is often a good source of information, but at times they tend to get the context confused. Recently they compared Samsung and LG’s smartphone business as if they were competitive. LG released more than two dozen Android smartphones over the course of this year, which is about half of Samsung’s 2020 output, model-wise. Apple released 5 in 2020. Samsung is expected to hit around 260 million handset shipments this year, LG will reach 28m.
Figure 1: LGE vs. SEC Smartphone Shipments 2011-2020
Source: Mizuho Securities
LG has never been competitive with Samsung in smartphone, even back in 2011 Samsung shipped 5x more than LG. So, SamMobiles comments that “Nothing illustrates this fall from grace better than LG’s best attempt at a 2020 flagship – the LG Wing 5G”, totally misrepresents the situation. They point to the failures of the LG Wing 5G, which they claim was caused by gutting the marketing department and forcing designers to either come up with a device that somehow advertises itself or not bother coming up with anything, at all. The LG Wing 5G was relatively successful at generating word-of-mouth buzz, but hardly for the right reasons, given its poor commercial reception. In 2020 LGE wasn’t ready to follow Samsung’s lead in the foldable smartphone sphere.
It’s been years since LG last managed to deliver a well-rounded, commercially successful smartphone. The last such device was probably the 2014 G3 series The Wing appears to be nothing more than a placeholder and that LG’s rollable smartphone could be a competitor in the race for foldable supremacy. They have the technology for rollables and the technology for flexible OLED display, so it’s up to LG Electronics to execute. They won’t enter the supremacy discussion, but it should lead to credibility.
It’s been years since LG last managed to deliver a well-rounded, commercially successful smartphone. The last such device was probably the 2014 G3 series The Wing appears to be nothing more than a placeholder and that LG’s rollable smartphone could be a competitor in the race for foldable supremacy. They have the technology for rollables and the technology for flexible OLED display, so it’s up to LG Electronics to execute. They won’t enter the supremacy discussion, but it should lead to credibility.