LG

LG Electronics is a South Korean multinational consumer electronics and major appliance corporation headquartered in Yeouido, Seoul, and one of the flagship companies of the LG Group, the fourth-largest chaebol in South Korea. It is the electronics successor of GoldStar (Geumsung), founded in 1958 in the aftermath of the Korean War to supply the rebuilding nation with domestically made consumer electronics. Thanks in part to a technology partnership with Japan's Hitachi, GoldStar produced South Korea's first radios, televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners, went public in 1970, and by 1976 was producing one million televisions a year. The company expanded aggressively through the 1980s, opening its first overseas factory in Huntsville, Alabama in 1982, and in 1994 it rebranded from GoldStar to LG Electronics to unify its global identity. That same era brought landmark products: the world's first CDMA digital mobile handsets in 1995, the world's first 60-inch plasma TV in 1998, and a 1999 joint venture with Philips that became LG Display, the world's largest LCD panel maker by 2009. LG also acquired the historic American TV brand Zenith in 1995. In the smartphone era, LG was a pioneer of high-end mobile hardware. Its LG Optimus 2X (2011) was recognized by Guinness World Records as the first dual-core smartphone, and the company went on to field the G and V series flagships, including the curved-screen LG G Flex and the dual-screen LG V60. The Optimus line had earlier given the company a strong Android foothold in North America through carriers such as Sprint and T-Mobile, and LG was long one of the only major Android makers outside of Samsung, Apple and Huawei. However, years of losses in the mobile division led LG to announce on 5 April 2021 that it was withdrawing from the smartphone business entirely, ending more than a decade of handset production and shifting its focus to home appliances, displays, automotive electronics and battery technology. After that, LG's four business units are Home Appliance Solution, Media Entertainment Solution, Vehicle Solution and Eco Solution, and the company has invested heavily in electric-vehicle components, including the LG Magna e-Powertrain joint venture and the 2022 acquisition of EV-charger maker AppleMango. LG remains a global technology leader, ranking among the top patent filers in the world under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and in 2020 it began selling its rollable OLED TV. Its home appliances were rated the most reliable in the US market by Consumer Reports in 2022, and its Changwon and Tennessee plants have been named WEF Lighthouse Factories for advanced manufacturing. The company is also a former sponsor and official electronics partner of the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games.