Sales down quarterly and yearly, although operating loss narrows
LG’s mobile division saw further sales declines in its third quarter. Sales stood at KRW1.52 trillion ($1.27 billion), a decline on the previous quarter’s KRW1.61 trillion (£1 billion), as well as a decline year-on-year, when sales for Q3 2018 stood at KRW2.04 trillion (£1.35 billion).
In a report outlining its earnings, LG said its operating loss “narrowed significantly to KRW161.2 billion (£1.07 billion), due to production efficiencies and cost improvements”. The company also saw decent domestic performance of its new 5G products, thanks to the relatively swift uptake of the service in South Korea.
The company said the reason for the mobile sales was the “challenging smartphone market”.
Overall, LG announced record-breaking third-quarter revenues of KRW15.7 trillion (£10.4 billion) and an operating profit of KRW781.4 billion (£517 million), increases of 1.8 per cent and 4.4 per cent year-on-year respectively “primarily due to the strong performance of the home appliance, home entertainment and business solutions business units”.