LG Electronics is looking to squeeze some extra money out of its customers by spending it all on advertising and subscription offers for its appliances and televisions. It’s part of a plan to increase global annual revenue from a reported $51 billion last year to nearly $79 billion by 2030. Part of that growth strategy is to bring webOS, the operating system that runs LG smart TVs, to more brands of external televisions and “others”. product groups.”
On Wednesday, LG CEO William Cho Announced the Korean tech giant’s intention to transform into a “smart living solutions company” by diversifying its current business portfolio and creating a business model that focuses on “customer engagement.” the new lg growth strategy It will introduce a “continuously profitable platform-based service business model, such as content and services, subscriptions and solutions” across its entire product portfolio.
LG seeks to reinvent itself as a “smart living solutions company”
“LG will continue its bold vision of transforming and advancing as a smart living solutions company that connects and amplifies diverse spaces and customer experiences, rather than resting on its current position as the best home appliance brand offering products from quality”. said CEO Cho. “We will establish a whole new LG by reinventing the way we work and communicate to achieve this goal.”
LG says its TV business will be the first to transition to the new business model, with the intention of transforming itself into a “media and entertainment service provider.” Sometime towards the end of this year, the company is looking to introduce changes to its webOS TV software that will allow LG to expand “content, services and advertising” into products like LG’s OLED and QNED TVs. According to LG, the webOS platform is already running on more than 200 million smart TVs around the world. The company also intends to bring its webOS software to third-party TV brands and non-TV hardware on the LG family of products sometime in the next five years.
Consumers may soon need to pay a subscription to unlock features on LG ThinQ Up devices
Subscriptions will also play a prominent role in LG’s range of home appliances. According to the company Press release “The goal is to further develop LG ThinQ UP devices that upgrade features customers need even after purchase and evolve into a “Home as a Service platform” including customer customization options, subscription services, and support. for unnamed smart home services. LG introduced its ThinQ UP range of updatable devices last year that are designed to be updated with new features via the ThinQ app. We noticed at the time that some automakers were using a similar business model to charge customers to unlock features that are already built into their vehicles; looks like LG was paying attention.
It’s hard to imagine that consumers will welcome these changes with open arms. as pointed out Registerthe large number of services that have adopted subscription models in recent years has raised concerns about “subscription fatigue” — a term used to describe consumers who are overwhelmed by subscription offers. It is quite common for the US Federal Trade Commission to have proposed introduce stronger regulations to crack down on some of the industry’s most nefarious practices, like non-consensual billing and making subscriptions intentionally hard to cancel.
