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Android Businesses Google The Almighty Buck

LG Continues To Bleed Money, Thanks To Smartphones (engadget.com) 86

Posted by msmash from the fate-of-our-mobile-divisions dept.
LG's big bet on modular smartphone G5 didn't pan out the way it wanted, and its mobile business continues to bleed money. From a report on Engadget: The final quarter of 2016 saw the company take a severe blow, actually losing $223.98 million, mostly thanks to its failing handset division. [...] The numbers are buried deep in its figures, however, revealing that the firm hawked 14.1 million units in the quarter. Operating losses, meanwhile, sunk to around $400.2 million despite "strong sales" of the V20. But any boost that the V20 offers only serves to offset the soul-sucking failure of the G5, still chewing through money long after the company began announcing its replacement.
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LG Continues To Bleed Money, Thanks To Smartphones More

LG Continues To Bleed Money, Thanks To Smartphones

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  • Boot-loops (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @10:42AM (#53734703)

    Probably has something to do with their manufacturing process that led to their flagship phones (LG G4, G5, Nexus 5X) going into an infinite reboot-loop after roughly a year of use. There's a big Reddit thread about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/nexus5x/comments/5l66de/bootloop_megathread_20/

    • Re:Boot-loops (Score:4, Insightful)

      by courteaudotbiz ( 1191083 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @11:15AM (#53734899) Homepage
      I had an LG G2 a couple years ago. After 6 months owning it, the touchcreen controller or sensor stopped working. I had Rogers (My Canadian provider) replace the defective screen. After another 6 months, it did the exact same thing, but the phone was out of warranty. Both Rogers and LG refused to repair the phone. This was, and forever will be, the last LG phone I owned.

      Now I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and am perfectly happy with it.

      • The G2 and other models based on the G2 design had this issue (LG Power, LG Leon/Leon LTE), including the later revisions of the same design, the G3 and G4.

        Nobody can figure out if it's bad digitizers, a bad LCD, or a bad mainboard.

      • Quality issues aside, who thought this G5 experiment was going to work? How many people were ever going to buy those expensive accessories like the VR goggles or the camera, especially if they aren't hot swappable? Who was going to spend all that money just to carry around some huge accessories?

        It was ill-conceived from the start, the only question is why it ever got green-lighted

    • I know several LG owners, G2, 3, 4, 5. None tell me of any hardware problems. Maybe batch problems...

      • I have had a G4 for well over a year now. No problems at all.
        All my Iphone and Galaxy S6 friends have had issues.

    • A year? Try 3 months. The best part- bought this through Kogan. Their solution was to replace the handset with a totally inferior Samsung unit. I will never buy a Kogan/LG phone again.

  • Availability? (Score:5, Informative)

    by wardrich86 ( 4092007 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @10:50AM (#53734745)
    I have an LG G5. The modules were near non-existent. I'm not even sure where you could go to buy them - were they carrier exclusives? The idea was solid, but the marketing behind it was a huge flop.

    • Re:Availability? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @11:13AM (#53734885)

      Why would anyone invest in those modules? LG should have made a pledge to support these modules, and that every future phone they release in the next 5 years will be compatible with the modules if they wanted to be trusted.
      Otherwise everybody knew these modules were going nowhere and that the G6 would not support them.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by X86BSD ( 689041 )
      The idea was STUPID and an epic design failure. Even Google scrapped their "modular" phone idea. Everyone who has their fingerprints on this should be fired and blacklisted from being hired ever again.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )

        I almost got a Moto z play with the camera module and an extra battery one, but in the end went cheaper.

        The camera was kind of lame (it could zoom as advertised, but no HDR).

        The battery wasulking relative to power too.

        It seemed pretty well designed overall though.

      • A modular phone is a good idea, it's just too soon to introduce them to the smartphone market. The idea behind the modules is that your phone's display, memory, and radio technology (4G) may be just fine, but the CPU is starting to get a little long in the tooth and you'd like to upgrade it. Or maybe all the other components are fine, but you want to use the phone with newer 5G service. Or maybe you just want a higher-resolution screen.

        The problem in the smartphone industry right now is that the techn
    • I have the LG G5 too, but I didn't buy it for the modules. I bought it, because it's a great phone. It's one the few phones with the right combination of 1) microSD slot, 2) removable battery, and 3) very, very little crapware pre-installed. And the hardware specs are good too. I'm a bit surprised it didn't succeed on these merits.

    • Yup. I was looking to buy the G5, bought into the modular idea. However before I did I starting looking around for where you could buy them and for how much. Basically you could not. You might get one through a special promotion when you got the phone from your carrier (One place had the external battery, while another offered the Camera, but only to the first X number of people that bought the G5 and no indication of what X was (other than limited quantities), but that was about it. You couldn't buy anythi

  • Shame (Score:5, Insightful)

    by balaband ( 1286038 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @11:04AM (#53734813)

    Which is really a pity - they are probably one of the last producers of phones with changeable batteries and sd card slot. My LG G3 is 2.5 years old and still going strong as day 1.

    They have succumb to the trend set by (also failed) Google ARA project which made no sense to start with.

    If anybody from the LG is reading this: keep doing what you were doing, only "modular" thing needed on the phone are battery and memory card. Keep the headphone jack, keep the excellent build quality and do as minimal changes as you must to the original android UI.

    There is a lot of us that don't want flashy gimmicks with money to spend and less and less options to choose. Be smart.

    • My previous phone was an LG, and whereas I loved it, it didn't last over 2 years for me. It was great for about two years, then I would get ghost touches, a deadspot that wouldn't respond to any touches, and it started turning off if anyone texted me and I had 15% or less battery left.

      That last one was bizarre, if I had 15% or less power and someone sent me a text... zip- phone turned off. Before the two year anniversary phone was great though and I had full intention to buy another because it went 2 year

      • Re: Shame (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Bad battery. Extremely common with the G3. It provides lower voltage than required which makes it reboot. Mine did it when turning the camera on. I changed the battery and that was that. (i won't come back to read a response both thought this might be helpful).

        • My HTC ONE M8 is so old. How old, you ask?

          The battery goes from 100% to 50% under heavy use in about 90 minutes. At 50%, texting, dialing a call, receiving a call, opening a browser drops it to 46% and it dies. Not shutdown, power fail.

          When I reboot, the battery says 44%, and will last to a home screen, but any selection it dies again. And Marshmallow doesn't like being unpowered twice in a row.

          Obviously a bad battery, and it's well past 2 years, close to 3 years old. I probably have 1800+ cycles on it.

          My

      • I don't think thats strange at all. For me, if a lithium battery is showing less than 50% its gone and needs to be charged.

    • Which is really a pity - they are probably one of the last producers of phones with changeable batteries and sd card slot. My LG G3 is 2.5 years old and still going strong as day 1.

      Which might tell you something about how little most customers care about those features. Nothing wrong with those features but they add cost and if people aren't willing to pay extra for them then there is no point in building them into the product.

      If anybody from the LG is reading this: keep doing what you were doing, only "modular" thing needed on the phone are battery and memory card. Keep the headphone jack, keep the excellent build quality and do as minimal changes as you must to the original android UI.

      Keeping doing what they are doing is what got them into this situation in the first place. Obviously whatever they are doing isn't what customers are willing to pay for so they need to do something else. Exactly what that is I don't pretend to know.

      • LG G2 and G3 sold like crazy, not sure about the G4, but apparently G5 was a flop. And with reason, main selling point were flashy gimmicks nobody actually needed.

        • LG G2 and G3 sold like crazy, not sure about the G4, but apparently G5 was a flop. And with reason, main selling point were flashy gimmicks nobody actually needed.

          The older phones are STILL selling well. Look at the prices on eBay.

          • The older phones are STILL selling well. Look at the prices on eBay.

            Secondary markets are irrelevant as far as LG is concerned. And just because you see a few of them selling on eBay does not mean they are "selling well". Selling well in the context of a company like LG means selling tens of millions of units. Guarantee you aren't seeing that on eBay. A high price on eBay doesn't necessarily mean it was popular - it often means that it was rare.

            • It shows demand. And calling a G3 rare is a bit of a stretch! The fact is that Smasung phones of the same era have not held value as well, and there is a reason.

    • Shop around; there are still plenty of decent-quality Android phones with SD card slots, replaceable batteries and often dual SIM slots.

    • You did a great job listing the good features of LGs. Two more:
      1. They are inexpensive (compared to similar Samsung phones)
      2. They are well supported by 3rd party ROMs. I have an older LG phablet, but am running the latest Android/Cyanogenmod on it. Awesome!

    • Unfortunately, leaked info about the upcoming G6 indicates that LG has succumbed to non-replaceable battery syndrome. *sigh*

      My LG Stylo 2 Plus has great battery life AND a replaceable battery, so it's clearly not an impossible task to have both.

      • Unfortunately, leaked info about the upcoming G6 indicates that LG has succumbed to non-replaceable battery syndrome. *sigh*

        My LG Stylo 2 Plus has great battery life AND a replaceable battery, so it's clearly not an impossible task to have both.

        You would think they would look at the sales figures for the new phones and compare them with the used market (which is quite strong) for their old phones and take a hint!

      • Water resistance seems to drive this. Now to do something about ding resistance...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Eloking ( 877834 )

      Which is really a pity - they are probably one of the last producers of phones with changeable batteries and sd card slot. My LG G3 is 2.5 years old and still going strong as day 1.

      They have succumb to the trend set by (also failed) Google ARA project which made no sense to start with.

      If anybody from the LG is reading this: keep doing what you were doing, only "modular" thing needed on the phone are battery and memory card. Keep the headphone jack, keep the excellent build quality and do as minimal changes as you must to the original android UI.

      There is a lot of us that don't want flashy gimmicks with money to spend and less and less options to choose. Be smart.

      Actually, the LG G3 was quite an amazing cellphone. When people around me break their latest iPhone and cannot afford de 800$ for a new one, I always recommend the LG G3. It's a High-spec, three-generation old cellphone that you can easily find around 200$ because of the low recognition of the brand. Still, there's a few flaw they made that could be easily avoided. For the LG G3, the Pixel-Heavy-Overkill screen if the main problem, draining the big 3000 mAh in less than a day. It's a stupid marketing move o

    • Not sure how long it'll last, but I just bought a Samsung S7 for $240 and it's got a removable battery and a smart card slot that I put a 32gig card in.

  • Quality (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I moved to an LG G2 a few years back due to issues with my previously preferred HTC models (update and battery mostly). I loved the phone until - dead spots on the touch screen. It eventually after a couple months became unusable. I replaced the digitizer & LCD, only to have the dead spots return more aggressivly within a month. This left me with an inoperable smart phone for the last 6 months of a 2 year contract.

    My son had a G3 shortly after, which died altogether with main board issues that were appa

    • Sounds similar to my LG G2, although, I never bothered replacing the screen as the phone was 2 years old and I figured I could probably get a new phone for close to the repair price.

  • I still own one and very happy with it. No BS phone only what one needs. I cannot even remember how many times it fell on the hard surface and other than few scratches it still works perfectly. Only battery is after all these years a bit worn off. If only all other my phones worked as well as this one.

  • Revenue is easy. Profits not so much. (Score:3)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @11:46AM (#53735145)

    Operating losses, meanwhile, sunk to around $400.2 million despite "strong sales" of the V20.

    This is a fancy way of saying you can generate a lot of revenue selling $2 bills for $1. Just because they sell a lot of something doesn't mean they are selling it at a price that is profitable. If the only way you can move a lot of product is to sell it below cost then it's probably a good idea to get out of that market.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rgbscan ( 321794 )

      Econ Girl explains it for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLqStv4k06A

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        Econ Girl explains it for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        Mind blown. You really need 11 minutes of formal academic Economics terminology to say: 0 revenue - unrecoverable fixed costs = you lost money? There's another subject matter domain that can help with this, it's referred to as: common sense.

  • Ok, let me get this straight. A competitor enters a saturated market where there are very high quality products that people are very satisfied with. This competitor is hoping to introduce a better, competing product or a product at a better price point to shoe horn their way into market and spends a lot of money on R&D based on some irrational product vision? It's not like they couldn't have known there was high risk involved. This sounds like the pointy haired boss in Dilbert. "We are going to mak
  • was also a phone made by LG. Probably the best Android phone for its time. Nexus 6 was too big and after that Snapdragon 808 and 810 kept the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P from being top spot when it comes for performance due to heating issues and being generally shitty SoCs. Nexus 5 from my POV was the peak of Android OS. In fact Nexus 5 could run the last version of Android 7 Nougat just fine if it wasn't for the shitty policy of providing updates for only 2 years and for the Qualcomm assholes who don't want to p
  • rock and a hard place. Time to go find a different pond.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I don't get it. Samsung was stung by battery problems, which should have driven sales to Apple or LG, the only other 2 big players. Tim Cook got dinged pay for flat sales. Buyers gotta go somewhere.

      Maybe the market is just near saturation and all 3 phone makers over-invested or over- forecast growth.

  • Remember it's a Chaebol and includes LG Electronics, LG Display, LG Uplus, LG Chem, LG Life Sciences, and LG Solar Energy.

    Given how many industries they're in the chart they provide is a spurious correlation [tylervigen.com] at best.

  • Modular phones are not going to happen....stop trying to make them happen.

  • I think LG is getting what they deserve for allowing carriers to lock the bootloader... even when I outright purchased the phone. This is true on the G3 and G4 on many carriers (excluding the international version -- you are in great shape if that works for you!).

    I owned a G2 and had endless GPS-lock issues because of a faulty antenna design.

    I own a G4 that has already been replaced for the bootloop issue. Other than that, and the damn locked bootloader, it's been a nice device. One day it will probably b

  • Not delivering hot devices (Score:3)

    by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @01:38PM (#53736139)
    That's what happens when a company does not deliver hot devices. Those that come up with explosive handsets are doing much better. Indeed, they have rekindled the public's interest, with their money now burning a hole in their pockets. Such fiery companies are searing the competition.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by misxn ( 901438 )

      That's what happens when a company does not deliver hot devices. Those that come up with explosive handsets are doing much better. Indeed, they have rekindled the public's interest, with their money now burning a hole in their pockets. Such fiery companies are searing the competition.

      What's not hot about the V20. It's an awesome device. It just costs $800.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Alok ( 37687 )

      So you think LG needs a competitor to the Note 7 to grab the public spotlight?

  • LG V20 is pretty much everything I want, SD Card Slot, Removable battery and a DAC built in. I carry a dac with me, and good fiio dacs are only 90 bux. Worth it to drive good headphones off your cell phone. But the LG V20 is 800 bux and I can't see spending that much. My modded note 4 has a 10k zero lemon and custom rom/kernel that gets great life and almost speedy as my s7, except chrome doesn't scroll as sliky smooth just average smooth.

    I'd say the oneplus is 2nd in almost everything I'd want, but lacki

  • I have to say that it looks quite nice. Especially the wide angle camera is unique in many ways, although it would be nice to also have a telephoto option.

    And that is exactly where the "camera" module disappoints: it does not have a camera! That would have been a perfect opportunity to add a zoom in camera.

  • Ha (Score:2)

    by piojo ( 995934 )

    Maybe if they didn't have such bad customer service, they wouldn't be bleeding customers.

    (Every single LG G4 dies, from what I've been told by service people--the CPU or motherboard is severely defective. When I tried to get them to repair it, they tried to charge me more than the full value of the phone. That was clearly intended to make me buy a new phone. I did, but definitely not a phone made by LG.)

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