Why LG stopped making smartphones

LG, the Korean electronics group, was one of the smartphone market’s first movers. Now it has joined a group of has-beens, such as Nokia. Matthew Partridge reports

LG smartphone
The group’s market share peaked in 2009
(Image credit: © JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images)

Korean electronics company LG is giving up on making smartphones after it admitted that it can’t cope with increasingly intense competition, says James Titcomb in The Daily Telegraph. The news is a major milestone as LG was an early mover in the mobile market, beginning production in 1995 and later pioneering the use of a touchscreen even before Apple launched the iPhone. While its market share peaked in 2009, even in 2013 it was still the world’s third-biggest mobile-phone manufacturer. LG’s departure adds to a growing “graveyard” of phone makers such as Nokia, BlackBerry and Motorola, which previously dominated the industry before falling away.

A penchant for gimmicks

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri