With the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in the rear-view mirror, the next major consumer tech event is Mobile World Congress 2018, which will be held in February. It was initially reported that the LG G7, LG's next-generation G series flagship smartphone, would make an appearance either there or at an event in March ahead of an April launch.
That now seems unlikely. Jo Senong-jin, Vice chairman and CEO of LG Electronics, has reportedly ordered significant revisions to the company's upcoming flagship phone, tentatively known as the "G7", according to The Investor.
The Investor, quoting an unnamed company official, states that LG G7 engineers were told to halt recent work related to the phone's development and "review [it] from scratch." The official told The Korea Herald that just after the vice chairman announced at CES last week that LG was changing its smartphone strategy, the LG G7 team was ordered to start over.
Rumor within the company has it that the team hasn't been able to find a strong selling point for the G7. A new decision on the phone's launch date could be released around the Lunar New Year holiday next month.
As of now, not much is known about the LG G7. According to rumors, the device is expected to have smaller bezels while retaining an 18:9 aspect ratio display. It's also expected to have dual cameras on the front, which might mean that one of its sensors will be used for LG's facial recognition feature.
In what might have been foreshadowing, Mr. Senong-jin said at CES in January that the company wouldn't necessarily launch smartphones at a predefined time intervals, and would instead unveil them "when they [were] needed." By now, LG's struggles in the smartphone world are well-documented, although it does well in other fields such as premium home appliances. Mr. Senong-jin has stated that he is considering retaining existing smartphone models longer, and that LG could even introduce a new flagship phone brand.
An LG Electronics public relations official later told The Investor publication that LG's mobile division was seeking new marketing strategies related to launches and that nothing had been set in stone.
The Investor report noted that under former President Juno Cho, the company's smartphone unit posted deficits for 11 straight quarters with an estimated 233 billion won ($219 million) in losses. Concerns are spreading across the entire smartphone business, according to the official quoted in the report, and causing worries about what kind of changes will be made to the company's V series smartphones. LG has launched V series flagships every autumn starting from 2015.
The Investor added that "market observers" expect a scale-down of LG's smartphone business after the unit was degraded to a vice-president-led unit at the end of November.
If the G7 team has been told to start development of the G7 from scratch, it would be a rare but not unprecedented event in smartphone history. We expect to learn more about LG's 2018 G series flagship in the coming weeks.
Source: The Investor
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