The current management of the LG smartphone leader since the iPhone launch [인사이드 아웃]

[인사이드아웃] LG Electronics’ MC (Mobile Communications) business headquarters has been reorganized. LG Electronics CEO Kwon Bong-seok recently said, “I think we have reached the point where we have to make the best choice based on our cold judgment on our current and future competitiveness. We have all possibilities open. We have been working hard in recent years to improve the business structure of the MC division. Although it has been making efforts, the cumulative operating deficit by the end of last year was 5 trillion won.”

The MC business headquarters reached its heyday in the era of feature phones in the 2000s, including Prada phones. However, it was not able to keep up with the smartphone ecosystem that started with the iPhone in 2007, so we went downhill.

◆Previous heads of MC business headquarters

From 2007 to the present, the genealogy of the management of the MC Business Division has been followed by’Ahn Seung-kwon-Park Jong-seok-Jo Jun-ho-Hwang Jeong-hwan-Kwon Bong-seok-Lee Yeon-mo.

Ahn Seung-kwon, former president of LG Electronics, served as the head of the MC business division from March 2007 to September 2010. This period was the birth of the iPhone. The iPhone was released in 2007. However, LG Electronics insisted on feature phones. During the time of President Ahn, LG Electronics’ main products were mainly feature phones such as Lolli phone, Prada phone, and beauty phone.

According to market research firm Strategy Analytics (SA), in 2007, LG Electronics’ mobile phone sales worldwide reached 80.5 million units. Its share is 7.2%. At the time, the MC division’s operating profit was close to 1 trillion won.

In 2008, annual sales exceeded 100 million units. Beat Motorola and Sony Ericsson. That year, LG Electronics ranked third in global sales after Nokia and Samsung Electronics. Operating profit exceeded 1.5 trillion won. In 2009, the global market share exceeded 10%. In November of that year, the smartphone division was established. They released a smartphone, but there was no need for a smartphone. Feature phones still made money. In 2009, Apple’s share was only 2%.

But in 2010, the market share began to decline. Operating loss exceeded 600 billion won. Headquarters Ahn Seung-kwon moved to LG Electronics’ Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at the end of that year. In June 2010, Samsung Electronics released the first flagship smartphone,’Galaxy S’.

Former Head of Headquarters Ahn Seung-kwon, who served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of LG Electronics and the CEO of LG Science Park, is currently the President of Yeonam University of Technology. Yeonam Institute of Technology is a specialized engineering college established and supported by LG Yeonam Institute.

In September 2010, Vice President Jong-Seok Park took over the MC business headquarters. In September of that year, Samsung Electronics released’Galaxy Note’. Samsung has become the world’s number one smartphone maker.

Head of headquarters Park Jong-seok revived Pradafon. To recreate the glory of the past. LG Electronics released Prada Phone 3.0 at the end of 2011. Next, the’Optimus L’series and the’Optimus LTE’ and’Optimus G’were released.

In 2013, it gave up Optimus and launched’G’ as a premium brand. The MC division recorded an operating profit of 70 billion won that year. The global smartphone sales ranking was 5th.

Hope was seen in 2014. Smartwatches were introduced, and the G series settled in the market. The annual operating profit exceeded 300 billion won. However, President Park Jong-seok retired from the MC business division head for reasons of personal injury.

Jo Jun-ho, president of LG Co., Ltd., was assigned to the MC. It introduced the G4 and V10 in 2015, but recorded an operating loss that year. Jo Jun-ho, head of MC business division, introduced the modular smartphone G5 in 2016. It also introduced eight accessories for G5, named LG Friends. However, within a month after launch, sales began to decline. As a result, the MC business division suffered a deficit of over 400 billion won. Next Innovation, co-authored by President Joon-ho Cho and Professor Eon-Soo Kim of Korea University, said about G5, “It is judged as a case in which it did not get a high score in terms of whether the customer needed a modular smartphone and how innovative value it provided. . In his book, President Cho cited the inability to secure a supplier with the G5 design implementation capability as one of the reasons for the failure.

After the G5 failure in 2016, LG Electronics carried out a major reorganization of the MC division. MC Korea Sales FD was integrated into the Korean Sales Headquarters. In addition, the MC Leading Product Research Institute, MC Quality Management FD, and MC Marketing Communication FD were changed to organizations directly under the head of the division. While changing the MC sales group to the MC overseas sales group, Yeon-mo Lee appointed MC North American Sales FD as the group head. Vice President Lee Yeon-mo is currently the head of the MC business division. Changmin Ma, MC American Marketing FD, moved to MC North American Sales FD.

In December 2017, President Cho withdrew from the head of the MC business division and moved to the LG Inhwa Institute. He quit the LG Academy at the beginning of last year.

Vice President Hwang Jeong-hwan has been the head of the MC business division for one year from the end of 2017, and introduced the G7 and V40. He left the company after leaving the MC business division manager.

President Bong-Seok Kwon served as the head of the MC business division for one year in 2019. Previously, Kwon was in charge of MC Product Planning Group in 2012. Lee Yeon-mo, head of the MC business division, has been in charge of the MC business division since January last year.

◆MC men Bae Won-bok and Ma Chang-min leave LG and go to DL (formerly Daelim)

There are also MC men who left LG and went to DL (Old Daelim).

Vice Chairman Bae Won-bok of DL (formerly Daelim Industrial) has worked for LG Electronics for over 30 years, mainly in the mobile phone sector. In the early 2000s, he was appointed as the head of the design management center in 2007 after serving as the head of the overseas marketing product planning team of the MC business division and the marketing team of Latin America. Chocolate phone, Prada phone, Shine phone, etc. went through his hands. When he was the head of the Design Management Center, he hit crystal phones and lollipop phones. The beginning of LG Electronics’ first smartphone, Optimus, also came from his hand. During the golden age of LG Electronics mobile phones, the CEO was the vice chairman of LG Electronics at the time of abuse. Former Vice Chairman Abuse is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DL E&C.

Bae Won-bok, vice chairman of DL Co., Ltd., was in charge of global product strategy in the MC business division in 2010, and later served as the head of marketing center and sales group. However, as smartphone sluggish continued, he left LG Electronics in 2017. After working at Seoul National University for a while, he joined Daelim Group in 2018. It is said that the relationship with the chairman of abuse worked here.

Chang-min Ma, CEO of DL E&C, was the head of the Korean mobile group, who oversaw the sales and marketing of LG smartphones until last year. Since joining LG Electronics in 2005, he has worked at the MC business division. He served as MC Marketing Support Team Leader, Marketing Strategy Team Leader, Korean Marketing Manager, US Marketing Manager, Overseas Sales Group Manager, and Product Strategy Group Manager.

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