LG Electronics plans to spend $39.5 billion (50 trillion won) in R&D, facility and strategic investment as it aims to reach $79 billion (100 trillion won) in sales by 2030, up from $51.4 billion (65 trillion won) in 2022.
The Korean electronics and appliances behemoth, once a major name in the smartphone industry, rolled out its new strategy, transforming its home appliance and electronics goods maker into a platform-based tech company.
LG will bolster service platforms on its home appliances like TV products and white goods, reinforce business-to-business (B2B) units by leveraging its experience in the B2C market and accelerate new growth businesses such as electric vehicle (EV) charging and digital healthcare.
The company’s announcement comes roughly two years after LG closed its loss-making mobile phone business globally in 2021 to focus on its growth areas such as smart homes, connected devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), B2B solutions, EV components, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and platforms.
“LG will continue to pursue its bold vision to transform and lead forward as a smart life solutions company that connects and expands on customers’ spaces and experiences, rather than its current position as the best home appliance brand,” William Cho, CEO of LG Electronics, said in a statement. “We will establish a brand-new LG by reinventing the way we work and communicate while progressing towards this goal.”
The company, which annually sells about 100 million hardware products, doesn’t only manufacture and sell TV devices but also wants to offer webOS as a service platform provider, according to Cho in his speech in Seoul. For example, LG smart TV equipped with webOS offers customized advertising and TV and entertainment content from more than 3,000 broadcasting channels and 2,500 partners globally, including on-demand streaming platforms.
“We are supplying our webOS to various TV manufacturers and planning to actively installment of webOS in our digital signage and vehicle displays to expand the media platforms,” Cho said.
LG is also considering the development of a home energy platform, providing a solution that integrates HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), ESS (energy storage system) and EV charger.
As for the digital healthcare business, LG will work with its internal startup incubator LG Nova in North America, and is in the process of establishing a venture capital unit to back startups, the company CEO said.
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LG has been wading into emerging sectors through acquisitions, including ZKW, an Austria-based automotive lighting and headlight system provider; Alphonso, the U.S. adtech firm; Cybellum, an automotive cybersecurity startup; and AppleMango, a South Korean electric vehicle battery charge developer. LG began production of EV chargers in Seoul last month and changed AppleMango’s name to HiEV Charger.
The company has set up an EV company called Vehicle component Solutions (VS) Company in 2013, which develops infotainment, telematics and Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).
LG Electronics said last week it expects to post 19.9 trillion won ($15.2 billion) for the April-June quarter, the highest revenue in the company’s history. The company will release its full earnings report at the end of July.
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