LG CEO Encourages Securing New Businesses and Expanding Growth Opportunities in MEA and India
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By News Reporter
LG Aims to Expand Its B2B Offerings and
Build a Growth-Driven Portfolio in Emerging Sectors
SEOUL, Oct. 10, 2024 — LG Electronics (LG) held a press conference today at LG Digital Park in South Korea to share its future vision for the B2B sector with domestic journalists. The company outlined its goal for the LG Business Solutions (BS) Company to achieve KRW 10 trillion in annual revenue by 2030.
At its 2024 Investor Forum in August, LG highlighted the acceleration of its B2B operations as one of the central components of its business portfolio innovation strategy. By 2030, the company expects that its B2B concerns will account for 45 percent of total sales.
LG plans to strengthen its leading B2B businesses, such as hotel and hospital TVs, digital signage and premium laptops, while also focusing on medical monitors and electric vehicle (EV) chargers to build a sustainable, growth-focused portfolio.
Additionally, the company is rapidly strengthening its B2B capabilities across a wide range of areas, including vehicle components, HVAC systems, built-in appliances and smart factory solutions. The expansion into mobility and new business segments is part of the company’s strategy to accelerate its business transformation.
Leading LG’s flagship B2B businesses, the LG BS Company offers customized digital signage for various commercial spaces, including hotels, retail stores, offices, schools and hospitals, as well as IT products ranging from high-spec monitors to LG gram laptops, commercial robots and EV charging solutions.
The B2B sector is less affected by economic fluctuations than B2C, resulting in comparatively stable revenue and profits. Another advantage of B2B is the “lock-in” effect, which typically leads to close, long-term relationships with customers and a virtuous cycle of mutual growth.
“Over the past 66 years, LG has accumulated valuable insights into its customers and the diverse spaces they occupy through its consumer electronics business,” said Jang Ik-hwan, president of LG Business Solutions Company. “Going forward, we will leverage this expertise to offer tailored services and differentiated solutions to our business customers, further cementing our reputation as a trusted partner in the competitive B2B market. The BS Company is seeking to double its current revenue, reaching KRW 10 trillion by 2030.”
Driving the Commercial Display Market with Premium Signage and Hospitality TVs
LG has gained a leading position in the B2B display solution market thanks to its top-tier commercial display technology, premium digital signage and strong performance in the global hotel and hospital TV segments. LG’s information display business has experienced steady growth since 2019, recording an average annual growth rate of seven percent.
LG will continue to expand its display solutions business with products tailored for various spaces. The focus will be on premium fine-pitch LED signage (including All-in-One LED and Micro LED models), a product category that has seen a double-digit rise in revenue each year.
At the forefront of this expansion is the cutting-edge LG MAGNIT Micro LED display. LG MAGNIT is offered in various formats, including an all-in-one model for conference rooms, a model designed for virtual production studios, a premium home cinema edition and a model with a separate power supply unit (PSU). Since 2020, MAGNIT has recorded an impressive growth rate, with its annual revenue growth nearing a twofold increase on average over the past four years.
Additionally, LG is strengthening its portfolio of innovative digital signage solutions with products such as the next-generation LG Micro LED display, which is set to launch later this year. LG has employed the latest AI technology for its upcoming Micro LED, both during the production process and to create intelligent image-quality algorithms that help ensure superior visual performance. As part of the manufacturing process, AI is used to assess and select each of the product’s approximately 25 million LED chips (based on a 136-inch model). Meanwhile, the AI processor applied to the LG Micro LED display analyzes and optimizes color and brightness in real-time to deliver optimal picture quality.
To drive future growth, LG is actively working to identify potential demand and will keep on adding to its diverse lineup of tailored hardware and software solutions for commercial spaces.
Preferred by customers around the world, LG’s hospitality TVs boast many user-friendly features, including the ability to wirelessly mirror personal devices screens via Google Chromecast or Apple AirPlay. Hotel guests simply scan the QR code displayed on the TV to watch content from their device on the TV’s larger screen. To protect users’ privacy, viewing history and connection data are automatically deleted upon check out.
LG continues to maintain its strong leadership in the global hospitality TV market, and is collaborating with renowned international hotel chains including IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Hyatt.
In addition to its hardware offerings, LG provides a variety of cloud solutions through its online B2B platform, LG Business Cloud. These include the LG DOOH Ads digital signage advertising solution, LG SuperSign Cloud and Pro:Centric digital signage and hospitality TV content management solutions, and LG ConnectedCare remote monitoring and management solution.
To accelerate its expansion into new business areas and enhance overall competitiveness, LG is fostering strategic partnerships with global B2B companies. It recently signed a memorandum of understanding with office solutions provider Ricoh to explore the development of comprehensive enterprise services.
Strengthening LG’s Position as a Leading EV Charging Solutions Provider
LG is set to expedite its growth in promising new business areas, with the company’s EV charger business standing out as an emerging “unicorn.” Through strategic partnerships and investment, LG is poised to increase its presence in the global EV charger market.
LG opened its EV charger production factory in the U.S. (Texas) in January of this year and in June reached an agreement with ChargePoint, a leading provider of networked charging solutions for EVs in North America. The two companies are collaborating to expand their businesses by boosting product sales through distribution channels, reinforcing their product portfolios and jointly developing next-generation solutions. Additionally, LG is leveraging its extensive B2B sales network in the U.S., established through its nationwide success in hospitality TVs and digital signage, to actively target the country’s increased demand for EV charging infrastructure. This includes the necessary charging framework for hotels, shopping malls and retail stores, as well as highway charging stations and depots.
LG aims to secure around eight percent of the U.S. fast charger market by 2030 and position itself as a global top-tier provider of EV charging solutions.
At present, LG offers six types of EV chargers, including 7kW and 11kW slow chargers, and 100kW, 175kW, and 200kW fast-charging models.1 In addition, the company is producing a 350kW ultra-fast charger for the North American market and plans to release two slow-charging models – 30kW and 7kW – targeting the European market, all scheduled to launch by the end of this year.
Furthermore, LG is proactively addressing concerns over EV charger safety by implementing various fire-prevention solutions.
The charging control system applied to LG’s EV chargers prevents overcharging, which is one of the leading causes of EV charging safety incidents. The control system automatically stops charging when the vehicle battery reaches 80 percent during fast charging and 100 percent during slow charging. Additionally, LG chargers are equipped with a load management system that allocates electricity based on the installation site’s power capacity, ensuring stable charging even with limited power availability.2
The installation environment and consumer safety are key considerations in the design of every EV charger that LG makes. The company’s 175kW fast-charging model operates reliably in extreme temperatures ranging from -35 to 55 degrees Celsius and boasts an IP55 rating for water and dust resistance, along with an IK10 rating for impact resistance. Additionally, LG EV chargers comply with Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations for the use of ten harmful chemicals such as lead, cadmium and mercury during the manufacturing process.
Prioritizing Medical Monitors as a Key Growth Engine
LG is focusing on the medical monitor sector as a new growth driver for its IT business, with plans to become a global top-three medical monitor provider within the next five years.
Medical monitors are required to meet the medical device regulations of each country, as well as medical imaging display standards, such as DICOM Part 14. Delivering excellent image accuracy and reliability, these monitors are considered premium products with high entry barriers, and are recognized as high-value-added products. According to market research firm Omdia, the global medical monitor market is expected to reach approximately USD 2.5 billion in value by 2030. In markets such as North America and Europe, hospitals are required to use medical-grade monitors for the reviewing of medical images obtained from X-rays, endoscopies and other procedures. With these strict regulations in place, the market for medical-grade monitors is expected to grow significantly in the future.
Launched in 2016, LG’s medical monitor business has steadily expanded in size, achieving close to double-digit annual growth in North America and Europe. Its product lineup, which is now available in more than 50 countries worldwide, currently comprises 14 types of medical monitors – including clinical, diagnostic and surgical models – and six types of digital X-ray detectors (DXDs).
LG offers healthcare institutions a diverse range of medical monitors, including surgical monitors with Mini-LED technology, specialized diagnostic monitors for mammography and high-resolution displays with screen-split features. By adopting a turnkey solution approach, LG has enhanced its competitiveness in the global medical display market and set a solid foundation for future growth.
In 2023, the company made significant strides in the medical display segment by securing a four-year, EUR 10 million contract with Centrale d’Achat de l’Informatique Hospitalière (CAIH), France’s public hospital IT purchasing center, for the supply of medical monitors. Looking ahead, LG plans to integrate AI technology into the data analysis and solutions derived from its medical monitors and digital X-ray detectors, and is also considering an entry into the medical imaging equipment sector.
LG’s success in the B2B sector owes much to the company’s technology and knowhow accumulated over many years in the B2C market. Recently, LG is in discussions regarding a contract to supply a U.S. financial services company with custom-built, high-resolution monitors for a period of five years. LG has supplied dual monitors to a U.S. financial media company and provided in-flight entertainment (IFE) displays to international airlines.
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1 LG’s 7kW and 11kW slow chargers and 100kW fast charger are available in South Korea, while the 175kW and 200kW fast-charging models are available in North America.
2 LG’s load management solution, which has already been applied to the company’s fast- and slow-charging EV charging solutions in North America, will be introduced in South Korea beginning next month.
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By News Reporter
New Program Connects LG, Strategic Partners and Startups to
Ignite Collaboration and Development of Innovative Ideas for a Better Future
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 19, 2024 — LG Electronics today announced the launch of the LG NOVA Partner Alliance Program – a platform that brings together corporate partners and startups for cross-industry collaborations, technology and business development, and commercial partnerships to catalyze the growth of innovations for the future.
Spearheaded by LG NOVA, LG Electronics’ North America Innovation Center, the Program extends the success of LG NOVA’s mission to co-create new ventures with startups to its corporate partners with the goal to encourage exponential growth of new innovations in the market by creating more pathways for innovative ideas to flourish at a greater rate.
Joining the Partner Alliance Program at launch are
link hidden, please login to view, , , , and the . These organizations have all signed on to work with LG NOVA and its extensive startup ecosystem to generate and explore new concepts; develop, test and validate those concepts; and collaborate on innovative product solutions or even co-create new businesses. Additional partners will be added to the Partner Alliance Program in the coming months. “The new Partner Alliance Program aligns with our core mission to collaborate and create an eco-system for startups to thrive and ensure that the innovations today become the market-leading solutions of tomorrow,” said Dr. Sokwoo Rhee, corporate executive vice president for Innovation, LG Electronics and head of LG NOVA.
Kevin Chong, LG NOVA’s head of corporate and business development, said, “This program is a win-win for all parties, including LG, as we continue to explore new ideas for business co-creation. The growth of new ideas and cross-industry collaboration will help the markets move forward faster towards a better future that benefits all of us, businesses, people and the planet.”
In bringing on corporate partners to its Program, LG NOVA is helping to create more opportunities for startups to find quintessential industry partners that will help it reach commercial success at a larger level, Chong explained. For the corporate partners, finding innovative startups to work with will help them address new market opportunities, extend their businesses into new areas and better address the changing needs of their customers.
The Partner Alliance Program will leverage the resources of LG Electronics existing business units while also tapping into the pipeline of startups and resources available through the LG NOVA’s – a broad umbrella of programs designed around engaging with the entire innovation ecosystem to explore ideas on creating a better future through collaboration and tech innovations.
LG NOVA and the newly announced partners in the Partner Alliance Program plan to share more about their goals and vision for this program at the 2024 LG NOVA InnoFest, Sept. 25-26, at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Calif.
LG NOVA’s annual InnoFest conference unites business leaders, innovators and investors to collaborate on solutions for a better future, this year, under the theme of “Lighting the Halo of Innovation,” inspiring attendees to focus on impactful co-creation and bold ideas. For more information about this year’s event visit .
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By News Reporter
LG Electronics CEO William Cho, in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg, discussed the company’s business strategy, growth areas, and the competitiveness of LG’s AI. Cho highlighted the focus on expanding B2B, subscription services, and its webOS-based advertising and content business to drive growth.
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By News Reporter
In business, meaningful growth can’t happen without innovation. It’s essential if your organization is to evolve and thrive, and if you’re serious about adding value to people’s daily lives.
With a thirst to drive innovation, and a wealth of knowledge in the area of IoT, I set out to establish and grow my own startup. I’m happy to say I succeeded in this endeavor. However, with the business model being rather narrow – a continuous cycle of making products and then selling them – there were limitations to what I could do.
After making the decision to sell my company, I went on to serve as the Presidential Innovation Fellow for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), a program run by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It was a valuable and enlightening experience. There, I had the chance to work with leading tech companies to further develop and execute plans for industrial IoT and global smart cities. During my seven years in the U.S. federal government, I realized that there are limits to what governments can do with regard to building smart ecosystems. In the end, private companies are the ones bringing the ideas and concepts of smart solutions and businesses to fruition.
This was when I was first approached by LG Electronics. The company wanted to create a new organization dedicated to the discovery of future businesses. LG offered me this amazing opportunity to head up a team they were in the process of putting together.
I thought deeply about the prospect of joining LG. While the company is universally recognized as a strong player in the consumer electronics field, looking in from the outside, it seemed to lack what some might call, a certain ‘disruptive innovation.’ However, I was intrigued by its determination and desire to uncover future businesses and was confident that the company possessed the agility necessary to change and ‘disrupt.’
Personally, I believe that if there are ten great ideas on the table, seven or eight of them will fail to develop into successful businesses. While many people view this way of thinking about business creation as just plain crazy, LG CEO William Cho is, thankfully, not among them.
At LG NOVA, an initiative I am grateful to lead, our mission is to establish a community for nurturing, growing and creating new businesses in new market areas for LG. Early in the LG NOVA journey, we realized that entering new businesses – or new business areas – is difficult if you’re relying solely on your internal capabilities.
If LG wants to create new home appliances, it is in a good position to do this internally because it is already a global leader in consumer electronics, with all the necessary expertise and experience at its disposal. LG NOVA’s mandate is to explore entirely new and different concepts, not currently in LG’s wheelhouse. Although there are thousands of engineers and experts working in LG’s R&D centers, their expertise is in products and areas of business that LG is already in. This is why the LG executive team resolved to look outside of LG.
Our goal is to explore new business avenues that would, ultimately, help contribute to the advancement of LG Electronics. Startups, by the nature of their business model and ability to be at the ground-level of market needs, are leading the forefront of innovation. However, startups will not partner with just any firm that approaches them. This is why we needed to show that LG, as a company, has the commitment and capability to go far beyond home appliances and TVs. This is where LG NOVA comes in.
To establish ourselves in the market, we came up with the idea of hosting a grand challenge. In September 2021, we announced the launch of
link hidden, please login to view, an annual, global competition for startups where we could identify innovative technologies and business ideas for a better tomorrow. The participating startups were tasked with developing and presenting technology-based solutions for improving daily life, our communities and the planet. The tech areas we asked them to focus on included clean tech, healthcare and future tech/AI. To give you an idea of how it works, imagine there is a startup that creates sensors for use in healthcare devices. They might pitch a scenario or concept where their sensors are deployed in TVs to enable innovative new services. Our own business experts, or entrepreneurs in residence (EIRs), would then work with the startup to assess the feasibility of their idea. In many cases, EIRs would work closely with the startup to develop a relevant, but entirely different business idea that could be exciting to both parties. If the idea was deemed to be viable, and in alignment with LG NOVA’s goals and values, a partnership agreement might result and LG NOVA would launch a new business based on the collaboration. This is how a small, fledgling company can set its unique concept on the fast track to becoming a commercialized product.
Through this process, and by combining our capacity with the startup’s capacity, we can create a joint business where LG has as much ‘skin in the game’ as the startup. And at every step along the way, LG NOVA will be right there with them, from meeting with investors to introducing and marketing the ‘final product’ to customers. Through LG NOVA, we can create new products and services that can make a positive difference – and do it at a much larger scale than a startup could manage, if it were to go it alone.
I am proud to be a part of LG and to help guide LG NOVA into exciting new territories where boundless innovation awaits discovery. And I can say, without exaggeration, that I truly love this role. Ultimately, I’m striving for Innovation for Impact – which also happens to be the motto and the philosophy of LG NOVA. While there are many, many ways to make a profit, we have committed ourselves to achieving profitability in a meaningful way, and to leaving a lasting, positive impact on the world.
By Dr. Sokwoo Rhee, executive vice president of Innovation for LG Electronics, head of LG NOVA
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By News Reporter
From Education to Casual Games, Art and Wellness, LG Smart TVs Are Delivering
Experiences Filled With Enjoyment, Personal Growth and Excitement for All
SEOUL, Dec. 21 2023 —. LG Electronics (LG) presents an array of new apps available on the company’s smart TVs to meet users’ individual preferences and interests. The extensive selection of services is convenient and easily accessible on the big screen at home, enhancing various lifestyles with fun and enjoyment.
Supporting individuals of all ages on a lifelong journey of learning, the new LG Smart TV services recognize unique learning needs and the desire for knowledge and personal growth. A notable addition to the services is Udemy, a leading online skill development marketplace and learning platform. Marking its first TV product appearance with its debut on LG TVs, Udemy empowers individuals and organizations with flexibility and effective skill development by offering access to over 200 thousand courses across more than 3,000 subjects in over 75 languages. With a track record of benefiting 67 million learners, Udemy allows users to validate their achievements and celebrate their success with the knowledge they have gained. The platform consistently achieves high user satisfaction scores, providing a wide range of courses created by more than 70,000 global instructors tailored to users’ personal growth and professional development, from programming and data science to leadership and team building. The lecture recommendations are personalized to each individual, using the power of AI systems that analyze and match learners’ unique interests and goals.
LG Smart TVs also provide engaging learning platforms for children. ABCmouse is a comprehensive, research-validated digital learning solution for children ages 2 to 8, offering thousands of individual learning activities for young learners. Designed by leading education experts, children can explore a curriculum that encompasses all key academic subjects, including reading and language arts, math, science, health, social studies, art, and music on an LG Smart TV, diving into a dynamic world of engaging learning experiences. Young learners can also delight in interactive learning with digital educational content from The Pinkfong Company, which presents engaging songs and stories featuring the globally-beloved characters Pinkfong and Baby Shark. What’s more, the upcoming Baby Shark World for Kids app on LG’s webOS platform promises diverse experiences, including English learning, cultivating healthy habits, singing and dancing to the rhythm, and enjoying cinema versions of movies – all within an interface optimized for TV.
LG Smart TVs further elevate the entertainment experience with the ability to delight in a variety of casual games. Volley, a leading creator of voice AI games like Song Quiz, The Prize is Right and Jeopardy!, brings its top properties directly to the big screens of LG Smart TVs. Anipang Match, a web3 casual puzzle game developed by Wemade Play, integrates a play-to-earn model within the WEMIX PLAY blockchain game platform, delighting users with its cute characters and offering valuable coin rewards. Making its TV product debut, the larger screen will create a more immersive gaming experience, with intuitive play via the LG Magic Remote.
The most recent services and features available on LG Smart TVs cater to various lifestyles and individual preferences. Users can prioritize their health and wellness with Alo Moves, the award-winning holistic wellness platform by popular athleisure brand Alo Yoga that provides expert-led yoga, fitness, mindfulness, self-care, and nutrition programs for all levels. The platform is hyper-personalized and provides class recommendations based on users’ goals and interests. With Saatchi Art and Daily Art Story, a home will effortlessly transform into a captivating art gallery with professionally curated collections. What’s more, thanks to technologies developed by leading digital art platform company DASVERSE, LG Smart TVs deliver visually stunning quality that brings artwork to life.
LG’s latest innovations and achievements in creating a smarter, better life will be on show at CES 2024 from January 9-12 in the company’s booth (#16008, Las Vegas Convention Center). To keep up with every LG CES announcement, follow #LGCES2024 on social media.
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