LG Electronics Logged Net Losses of $717 Million in Q4 2019

Desi89

Editor

posted on 4 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

33
views

Apart from its equity losses, LG Electronics also saw the slump in its mobile business extend to 19 consecutive quarterly losses.

LG Electronics said that its fourth-quarter deficit widened due to losses in its equity ties with a display-making affiliate, while its mobile business remained in the red. The tech giant said it logged a net loss of $717 million in the October-December period, compared with a $67.7 million net loss a year earlier, Yonhap news agency reported. The company's operating profit increased by 34.5 percent on-year to 101.8 billion won in the fourth quarter, but this was an 87 percent drop compared to the previous quarter. Sales rose 1.8 percent on-year to $13 billion in the last three months of 2019. For the whole of 2019, LG Electronics' net income tumbled 87.8 percent on-year to $150.9 million.

Operating profit dropped 9.9 percent on-year to $2.01 billion, but sales inched up 1.6 percent on-year to a record $52 billion. LG Electronics said its equity ties with LG Display Co. hurt its bottom line. The company holds a 37.9 percent stake in the world's leading OLED panel maker. LG Display, which is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter earnings on Friday, has been suffering from falling LCD panel prices.

Analysts here expect LG Display to suffer more than $839 million in losses in 2019. Aside from equity losses, LG Electronics saw its mobile business extend a slump to 19 consecutive quarterly losses. LG Electronics' mobile business unit posted $278 milion in operating loss in the fourth quarter, widening from a loss of $267 million a year earlier. The unit's sales plunged 21.2 percent on-year to $1.09 billion.

For all of 2019, its mobile business had sales of $4.9 billion, down from $6.62 billion in 2018, while the operating loss was tallied at $847 million, also widening from $661 million in 2018. Analysts here predict that LG Electronics shipped only 29 million smartphones in 2019, down 28 percent from a year earlier.

"Sluggish sales of mass-tier smartphones in overseas markets, increased marketing expenses, and retail inventory adjustments led to operating loss in the mobile business," the company said.