LG 2016 financial report shows poor performance of mobile division

LG Electronics announced its fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 financial results today and they look good for all the departments except Mobile Communications.

Overall the company reports KRW 14.78 trillion revenue in sales ($12.79 billion) and KRW 1.34 trillion ($1.16 billion) operating profit due to strong performance by home appliances, air solutions and home entertainment. But one product didn’t perform well and it was the flagship smartphone LG G5.

The Mobile Communications (MC) division announced 15% QoQ growth due to the strong sales of the LG V20 but it was somewhat expected as that was the holiday quarter. Shipments reached 14.1M units with 4% QoQ growth but 8% decrease on an yearly basis.

The operating margin went from -1.7% in 4Q 2015 to -16.1% in 4Q 2016 on KRW 2.9 trillion ($2.51 billion) of revenue.

LG's outlook on the Mobile department says that the company is aiming to recover premium position in 2017 by launching successful flagship model, aka LG G6, which leaked earlier this week.

LG G6 is going to be unveiled at WMC in February and will be launched in March, right in time for the first schoolday of the new semester in South Korea.