Poor Sales And Low Yields Of G5 Could See LG Dump Modular Smartphones

You have to give LG credit for the G5. The smartphone, with its unique modular design, was an interesting attempt at differentiating LG in a saturated market. Unfortunately, rumours out of South Korea suggest the company, unsatisfied with the G5’s sales and its production complexity, will completely drop its modularisation initiative going forward.

According to a story in Electronic Times, LG’s plans for the G6, which should come out sometime next year, do not include any sort of modular features.

ET, speaking with an “industry [insider]”, reports low sales and disappointing production yields pretty much nixed any continuation of the G5’s design.

The article goes on to mention that the “inconvenience” of using the modules and the fact owners had to purchase them above and beyond the initial outlay for the phone killed any further exploration of the concept.

The apparent failure of the G5 also seems to have had an occupational cost:

Even LG Electronics admitted that G5 was not a success and it led to huge change in executives who were responsible for development of G5.

It’s kind of sad LG’s risk wasn’t rewarded and it makes little sense to push forward with the idea when the economics don’t add up (something Google itself figured out recently). Hopefully the company learned a few tricks from the experiment, ones conducive to a warmer reception for the G6.

[Electronic Times, via Ausdroid]


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