- South Korean appliance giant LG Electronics ousted its CEO and a raft of other top leaders Thursday after net profit plunged by more than 30% in the third quarter and losses in its smartphone business.
- After Samsung, the company is the second-largest electronics company in South Korea, manufacturing a range of products from mobile phones to televisions and home appliances, including air conditioners, washers, and refrigerators.
South Korean appliance giant LG Electronics ousted its CEO and a raft of other top leaders Thursday after net profit plunged by more than 30% in the third quarter and losses in its smartphone business.
After Samsung, the company is the second-largest electronics company in South Korea, manufacturing a range of products from mobile phones to televisions and home appliances, including air conditioners, washers, and refrigerators.
CEO Jo Seong-jin dubbed a “washing machine genius,” was appointed in December 2016 and is respected in South Korea for his unlikely trip to the top without an educational-driven degree.
But the struggling smartphone business, which recorded its 18th consecutive quarter of losses last month, has failed to turn around.
The net profits of LG Electronics as a whole plunged from a year earlier in the July-September period by 30.5 percent.
In March 2018, Jo’s term as vice-chairman was extended for three years, but LG said Thursday that Brian Kwon, 56, with effect from Sunday, was replacing him as CEO.
It also changed its Chief Financial Officer and created a new Chief Strategy Officer position while changing its home entertainment and mobile communications unit presidents.
“We’ve decided that we need a simple decision-making process… instead of sticking to the management style of past successes,” the company said in a statement.
LG said Jo had resigned and published a photo of himself and his replacement laughing and hugging each other, saying the transition was good.
Kwon, a senior graduate of Seoul National University with a degree in industrial engineering, has been with the company for 32 years and has “in-depth experience and skills” in fields such as big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud technologies, the company said.
LG Electronics Inc. is based in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea and is a South Korean multinational electronics company.
LG Electronics is part of South Korea’s fourth-largest chaebol (LG Corporation) and has reached $55.91 billion in global sales in 2014 (about 59.04 trillion), LG comprises four business units: Home Entertainment, Mobile Communications, Home Appliances & Air Solutions and Vehicle Components with Starion India[4] as its main refrigeration and washing machine manufacturer in the Indian sub-condition. LG Electronics owns Zenith and manages 37.9 percent of LG Display and LG Electronics remains the second-largest maker of LCD television in the world after 2008. The company has 128 operations worldwide, employing 83,000 people.
