LG Electronics’ 2021 sales to top W70tr without mobile biz

LG Electronics has topped 70 trillion won ($58.2 billion) in full-year sales for the first time in its history in an earnings surprise, in the same year that the company took down its mobile phone business, a preliminary filing showed Friday.

The revenue of LG Electronics came to 74.72 trillion won through 2021, up 28.7 percent from the previous year, according to its preliminary consolidated financial report. This beat the earnings consensus estimate by South Korean analysts. According to market tracker FnGuide, LG Electronics was projected to log 73.7 trillion won in sales last year.

Its annual operating profit, however, fell 1 percent to 3.87 trillion won, lower than the consensus estimate at 4 trillion won.

This comes nine months after LG closed its mobile phone business worldwide in April last year. But LG‘s home appliances, air purifiers, home entertainment devices as well as mobile phone components under LG subsidiary LG Innotek appear to have contributed to the record earnings.

Until September, LG‘s sales from home appliances, home entertainment devices and phone components accounted for nearly 80 percent of its total revenue, while the combined operating income from the three businesses were larger than the companywide figure.

LG Electronics did not specify the full-year earnings by areas of business.

Now, all eyes are on whether LG Electronics will be able to beat its home appliance rival Whirlpool this year by sales. From January to September, LG’s home appliance business recorded 20.58 trillion won, while Whirlpool‘s net sales came to $16.17 billion.

The share price of LG Electronics, trading on the Korea Exchange, climbed 1.9 percent to 137,500 won Friday.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)