LG takes on Dyson in world’s premium vacuum cleaner market

CHANGWON, South Gyeongsang Province ― LG Electronics’ A1 plant, one of the firm’s factories in a southern city, is in full swing to churn out home appliances, including washing machines, to prepare for South Korea’s peak moving season starting in April.

Inside A1, LG Electronics’ CordZero cordless canister vacuum cleaners are lined up on a 50-meter-long conveyer belt and slowly going through the final phase of the assembly process.

LG said the cordless canister vacuum cleaner, equipped with topnotch motor and battery technologies, would play a crucial role to take over the lead in the world’s premium vacuum cleaner market, outrunning the current market leader Dyson. 

“LG’s goal is to increase its presence in the premium market with the cordless vacuum cleaner lineup, outcompeting Dyson, which has maintained the lead in the world’s vacuum cleaner market since 2008,” said Steve Shin, LG Electronics’ cleaner business division vice president. Shin made the comments at a media briefing held on the sidelines of a media tour to the firm’s plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, on Friday.

Around 80 percent of the new flagship vacuum cleaner put together at the plant will be shipped to global markets, according to the tech giant.

The electronics giant is first targeting 16 overseas markets, including France, Germany, Spain, Australia and China, with the CordZero lineup in the first half of this year.

In order to appeal to consumers around the world, LG packed a number of cutting-edge technologies into the vacuum cleaner. This includes the smart inverter motor, which is based on technology utilized in the firm’s Direct Drive motor for washing machines, and LG Chem’s electric car battery technology.

The inverter motor is 30 percent more energy efficient than an average vacuum cleaner motor and boasts 200W (air watt) suction power, similar to that of a traditional canister vacuum cleaner.

The CordZero vacuum cleaner deploys 80V lithium-ion battery technology for electric vehicles, which ensures long durability, keeping its initial performance at up to 80 percent after 500 charge and discharge cycles.

Most of the production processes are done by LG’s partners and only the last assembly process takes place at A1.

Some workers in the first section of the assembly line at A1 put tags and stickers on LG’s flagship vacuum cleaners and others work in a transparent box in the middle of the assembly line to test the voltage of the products.

At the end of the assembly line, automated scaling systems weigh each packaged box of the vacuum cleaner to ensure every box weighs around 10 kg. A mere 100-gram error immediately stops the conveyor belt to inspect over or underweight products.

A series of durability tests for the cordless cleaners are also conducted at one of the test labs of LG’s Changwon plants. In one test, the vacuum cleaners are operated in an open container installed with uneven moving floors to assess if the products work in any condition.

“The durability test lasts for around 500 hours, which is tantamount to 900 kilometers in distance,” said a researcher at the lab.

By Kim Young-won  (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)