Life isn't all good for LG as company makes silent exit from Chinese smartphone market

LG's commercial failures of recent are an open secret. The company's mobile division has recorded losses for a while now, with dwindling sales of flagship devices being a major pain point. According to reports, the company has officially declared its exit from the Chinese smartphone market, citing the reason as overwhelming competition from local brands.

The Chinese market is especially hostile to foreign brands. Of all the major brands in the world, the only non-Chinese company to have a noteworthy market share in the local market is Apple. That's understandable, of course, considering the pseudo-exclusivity the company's devices offer. Even Samsung, the biggest smartphone manufacturers—by quite a decent margin—reportedly have only a 2.2% market share in China. Brands like Huawei, OPPO, and Xiaomi, however, dominate locally. There's a reason for that—the country's economic and technological policies lend themselves to local brands, and foreign brands are, perhaps, shunned.

LG is said to have managed to ship a measly 13.9 million smartphone units, which is utterly miserable from a company of its stature. For example, Meizu, a much smaller brand, managed to hit 20 million shipments. The South-Korean company also didn't launch any phones in China in 2017, which must have contributed to that low sales figure. Chinese brands are a dime a dozen, and while the budget and mid-range segments are controlled by brands like Xiaomi and OPPO—and saturated by other smaller companies—the premium range is dominated by Apple and Huawei. There just isn't any place for LG.

While the company will no longer sell its devices officially in China, instead choosing to focus on North America (its biggest market), it will continue to sell its consumer electronics there.