LG’s position in the mobile industry has been disappointing over the past few quarters to say the least. The company lost a total of $132 million in the second quarter of last year as a result of the G5’s lukewarm reception, but when rumors for the G6 first started pouring in, things looked like they were about to get better.
LG was the first company to market with a near bezel-less 18:9 smartphone, and for all intents and purposes, the G6 is one of the better handsets the company’s released in recent memory. Unfortunately, looking at LG’s earnings report for Q2 2017, it looks like it might be too little too late.
Despite LG pulling in $2.39 billion worth of revenue for its mobile division, the company still reported a loss of $117 million. That’s a step in the right direction, but losing slightly less hundreds of millions of dollars isn’t anything worth cheering about. According to LG, these losses come as a result of weak sales for the LG G6 and an increase in the price of raw materials used to manufacture the phone.
As mentioned above, the G6 is one LG’s stronger products that it’s produced in quite some time. Unfortunately, it wasn’t released in the smartest possible way. Although it technically beat the Galaxy S8 to market in the United States, it only did so by a few short days. Along with this, Samsung continued to dominate with its marketing for its latest handsets (something that LG still hasn’t learned how to do).
Looking forward, LG is hoping that it’ll be able to recoup these losses with its new Q lineup and upcoming V30. We’d like to believe that this will be the case, but seeing the position that LG is in, it’s hard to be optimistic about it.
Creating a quality smartphone isn’t enough to push units out the door these days. Along with that, you need effective marketing that communicates to customers why you should purchase Smartphone A over Smartphone B. Until LG wraps its head around this, we’ll likely be looking at more losses come next quarter.
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