LG Air Conditioner Brisbane

LG Electronics Inc. (Korean: LG 전자; RR: LG Jeonja) is a South Korean multinational electronics company headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea.

LG Electronics is part of the fourth-largest chaebol in South Korea (LG Corporation) and its global sales reached US$55.91 billion (₩ 59.04 trillion) in 2014. It comprises four business units: Home Entertainment, Mobile Communications, Home Appliances & Air Solutions and Vehicle Components,[3] with Starion India[4] as its main production vendor for refrigeration and washing machines in the Indian sub-continent. LG Electronics acquired Zenith in 1995 and controls 37.9 percent of LG Display as of 2013.[5] Since 2008, LG Electronics remains the world’s second-largest LCD television manufacturer.[6][7] The company has 128 operations worldwide, employing 83,000 people.[8]

In 1958, LG Electronics was founded as GoldStar (Hangul: 금성). It was established in the aftermath of the Korean War to provide the rebuilding nation with domestically-produced consumer electronics and home appliances. The start of the country’s national broadcasting that created a booming electronics market and a close relationship it quickly forged with Hitachi helped GoldStar to produce South Korea’s first radios, TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners.[9] GoldStar was one of the LG groups with a brethren company, Lak-Hui (pronounced “Lucky”) Chemical Industrial Corp. which is now LG Chem and LG Households. GoldStar merged with Lucky Chemical and LS Cable on 28 February 1995, changing the corporate name to Lucky-Goldstar and then finally to LG Electronics.

1970s–1990s

LG Electronics earned US$100 million in revenue from exports for the first time in its history. Rapid growth by globalization saw the company establish its first overseas production, based in the United States, in 1982. In 1994, GoldStar officially adopted the LG Electronics brand and a new corporate logo. In 1995, LG Electronics acquired the US-based TV manufacturer Zenith and absorbed it four years later. Also in that year, LG Electronics made the world’s first CDMA digital mobile handsets and supplied Ameritech and GTE in the US, the LGC-330W digital cellular phone. The company was also awarded UL certification in the US.[10] In 1998, LG developed the world’s first 60-inch plasma TV and established a joint venture in 1999 with Philips – LG.Philips LCD – which now goes by the name LG Display. In 1999, LG Semiconductor merged with Hynix.[11

2000s–present

In order to create a holding company, the former LG Electronics was split off in 2002, with the “new” LG Electronics being spun off and the “old” LG Electronics changing its name to LG EI. It was then merged with and into LG CI in 2003 (the legal successor of the former LG Chem), so the company that started as GoldStar does not currently exist.

LG Electronics plays a large role in the global consumer electronics industry; it was the second-largest LCD TV manufacturer worldwide as of 2013.[12] By 2005, LG was a Top 100 global brand and recorded a brand growth of 14% in 2006.[13] As of 2009, its display manufacturing affiliate, LG Display, was the world’s largest LCD panel manufacturer.[14] In 2010, LG Electronics entered the smartphone industry. LG Electronics has since continued to develop various electronic products, such as releasing the world’s first 84-inch ultra-HD TV for retail sale.[15]

On 5 December 2012, the antitrust regulators of the European Union fined LG Electronics and five other major companies (Samsung, Thomson since 2010 known as Technicolor, Matsushita which today is Panasonic Corp, Philips and Toshiba) for fixing prices of TV cathode-ray tubes in two cartels lasting nearly a decade.[16]

On 11 June 2015, LG Electronics found itself in the midst of a human rights controversy when The Guardian published an article by Rosa Moreno, a former employee of an LG television assembly factory.[17]

At the end of 2016, LG Electronics merged its German branch (situated in Ratingen) and European headquarter (situated in London) together in Eschborn, a suburb of Frankfurt am Main.[18]

In March 2017, LG Electronics was sued for its handling of hardware failures with recent smartphones such as the LG G4.[19]

Koo Bon-joon, who was the CEO and the current vice chairman of LG Electronics,[20] was replaced by his nephew in July 2018, implementing “first son-only succession rule”.[21] Also involved under the same rule is the present CEO of LG Corporation (the parent company) Koo Kwang-mo, who succeeded his father Koo Bon-moo after Bon-moo died of a brain tumor on 20 May 2018.[22]

LG announced in November 2018 that Hwang Jeong-hwan, who took the job as president of LG Mobile Communications in October 2017, will be replaced by Brian Kwon, who is head of LG’s hugely profitable home entertainment business, from 1 December 2018.[23] Also in 2018, LG decided to stop smartphone production in South Korea to move production to Vietnam, in order to stay competitive.[24] LG said Vietnam provides an “abundant labor force” and that 750 workers at its South Korean handset factory would be relocated to its home appliance plant.