Smartphone market share transformed after LG leaves the market

Since LG Electronics left the smartphone market, LG’s market share has turned out to have been replaced by Samsung Electronics in South Korea and by various Chinese companies, including Xiaomi, in Latin America. Motorola stood at the third spot in the North American market.

In April, LG Electronics announced to withdraw from the smartphone business and completely exited the market by the end of July 2021. Market experts analyze that the Android bloc won in the competition over the market share of around 5-10% that was once taken up by LG in South Korea, the North America region, and Latin America, thanks to the same operating system (OS).

Counterpoint Research, a market research firm, released a data on Tuesday that revealed South Korea’s smartphone market share in the third quarter, with Samsung Electronics (85%) at the top, Apple (12%) trailing behind, followed by LG (2%). Samsung’s market share significantly surged from its Q1 result (72%), mainly as a result of swallowing up a lion’s share of LG’s portion in Q1 (14%).

Samsung and Apple launched an aggressive promotion campaign targeting LG smartphone users by offering trade-in program. Industry analysts point to the same OS plus Samsung Galaxy Fold that rolled out in concert with LG’s exit from the smartphone business as the contributing factors that caused sharp spike in Samsung’s market share. Galaxy Z Flip3 and Fold3 were sold nearly 1 million globally in the third quarter alone, becoming the first and fourth most sold smartphones in South Korea.

In the meantime, Samsung and Motorola filled LG’s vacancy in the North American market. LG has for years maintained the third spot in the North American mobile phone market after Apple and Samsung. LG’s market share, which stood at 9% in the fourth of 2020, declined to 7% (Q1 2020), 3% (Q2 2020), and again close to 1% in the third quarter of this year.

Conversely, Samsung’s market share increased from 16% in the fourth of 2020 to 34% in the third quarter of 2021, and Motorola’s market share rose from 3% to 8% over the same period.


will@donga.com