By Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang
SEOUL, April 6 (Reuters) – Followers of LG Electronics smartphones rued the loss of much more very affordable Android-primarily based equipment right after the South Korean tech company claimed on Monday it would give up the business, with some praising LG for the innovation it brought to the field.
LG smartphone customers in South Korea and the United States posted nostalgic tributes on social media soon after the firm announced the exit, citing a extended product sales slump. LG however retains a roughly 10% share of the U.S. smartphone sector, in accordance to researcher Counterpoint, though its slice of the world-wide pie is just 2%.
“Remember to release the Rollable telephone just before you die,” explained a single user on a 300,000 member-solid forum on Naver, South Korea’s most significant online research portal, referring to LG’s most recent expandable screen https://www.cnet.com/information/lg-rollable-cellular phone-makes-ces-2021-appearance-and-were being-intrigued notion that the business flaunted at the CES trade clearly show in January.
Supporters fondly mentioned some of the company’s additional distinctive designs, these as a T-formed dual monitor, as effectively as options including a double-faucet to change a screen on and off.
“LG has some of the best audio hardware of any phone,” Kim Dong-woon, who has employed six LG smartphones, told Reuters. “It’s a shame that LG is withdrawing.”
Influential U.S. tech reviewers echoed the sentiments.
“LG were being hardly ever perfect but in a entire world of dull slabs they delivered some of the most exclusive cell phone patterns, concepts and functions ever,” mentioned YouTuber Austin Evans https://twitter.com/austinnotduncan/position/1378894062388797441 on Twitter.
LG, which had been making mobile phones for about a quarter of a century, ultimately fell at the rear of rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, in portion owing to lacklustre marketing and advertising and gradual software package updates.
Its smartphone division logged nearly 6 a long time of losses, totalling roughly $4.5 billion by the conclusion very last year.
For all the fandom, some criticised the phones, expressing the shutdown was inescapable.
“The creating has been on the wall for a long time … items didn’t boost,” claimed person cdegallo on Reddit. (Reporting by Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yang in Seoul Extra reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru Enhancing by Sayantani Ghosh)
