Plucky contender

Lovely picture, but will people pay for it?

AN EXECUTIVE at Samsung, asked recently what he thought of LG, his company’s domestic arch-rival, said with a wry smile that customers for electronic goods will always want to have a second, third or fourth choice, but that his competitor does not have the engineers, the technology, the budget or the leadership to be number one in most types of gadget. There was a time when LG was the local champion. In 1959 Lucky Goldstar, as it was then called, produced South Korea’s first radio and, soon after, its first electric fan and telephone. By 1970 it was selling the country’s first fridges, televisions and air conditioners. Yet now it beats its old adversary in selling only one type of appliance, washing-machines, and is struggling to recover the ground it has lost.

Samsung has emerged in recent years as one of the world’s dominant makers of microchips and smartphones. Last year its electronics businesses, including display screens, had almost four times as much revenue, and almost 15 times as much operating profit, as LG’s equivalent divisions. LG was once big in...

from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1emndrx