LG Electronics has reshuffled its top management to revive the smartphone business in order to compete with leaders Apple and Samsung.
LG has named Hwang Jeong-hwan as the new president and CEO of LG Mobile Communications Company.
LG Mobile Communications’ current president Juno Cho will take on a new role within LG’s parent company.
Hwang Jeong-hwan has years of experience in R&D and was involved in developing one of LG’s first smartphones in 2009 as head of the CTO’s Multimedia R&D Lab. The strategy of LG behind not naming a person with strong marketing and sales background to revive the smartphone business indicates that the Korean company wants more innovative products.
LG Mobile posted quarterly revenue of $2.48 billion (+8 percent) in Q3 2017, primarily driven by G6 smartphone as well as mass models such as the Q and K series with operating loss of $331.37 million. LG’s smartphone shipment rose 44 percent to 13.7 million. LG Mobile will focus on driving increased sales of V30 and improving cost competitiveness.
LG Electronics posted consolidated revenue of $13.44 billion (+15 percent) with operating income of $455.7 million.
Park Il-pyung, head of LG’s Software Center, will become the chief technology officer. Current CTO Skott Ahn will be taking on a new position in LG Corp.
Before joining LG, Park Il-pyung was chief technology officer at Harman International and head of the Intelligent Computing Lab at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.
Han Chang-hee, most recently vice president of appliance marketing communications, will lead LG’s worldwide marketing efforts as head of the Global Marketing Center.
Brian Na, who led LG’s global marketing efforts for the past two years, will become president of LG’s Western Europe operations.
LG is also establishing the B2B Company to oversee all aspects of business-to-business product sales including energy, information displays, vertical solutions.
Kwon Soon-hwang, formerly head of LG’s Business Solutions Company and head of LG’s India operations, will be the president of the newly-formed B2B Company.
LG will also create Convergence Business Development Center to initiate initiatives on artificial intelligence, IoT solutions and device-to-device connectivity.
