April 20, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] LG Electronics posted an operating loss for the first time in six years in the October-December period due largely to its money-losing mobile business, according to a regulatory filing on Jan.25.

The firm posted an operating loss of 35.2 billion won (US$30.23 million) with its quarterly sales coming in at 14.8 trillion won, up 1.5 percent from a year earlier.

LG’s mobile division undercut the profits of the company as it marked the seventh straight quarter in the red. In the last three months, the mobile unit lodged an operating loss of 467 billion won.

“The mobile division continued to lose money in the fourth quarter due to marketing costs for the V20 smartphone and its restructuring process,” LG said in its regulatory filing.

For the full year of 2016, the company posted 1.34 trillion won (US$1.16 billion) in operating profit, up 12.2 percent from a year earlier thanks to strong performance of home appliances, air solutions and home entertainment businesses.

The annual revenue of the firm stood at 55.37 trillion won, down 2 percent on-year.

The home appliance and air solutions business unit and the home entertainment business unit made up for the loss caused by the mobile division to some extent as both marked a record operating profit of 1.33 trillion won and 1.24 trillion won, respectively, last year.

LG’s vehicle components division, considered one of the tech giant’s future growth engines, swung into red while its revenue increased 51.3 percent to 2.77 trillion won.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)