Reports have emerged that LG are plannng to rebrand their flagship ‘G’ line of smartphones to better compete against other OEMs such as Samsung, Google and Apple, according to sources.
The reports were confirmed by an LG official who spoke to Digital Daily, a local tech news outlet in South Korea:
“LG is preparing a new brand strategy for the G series in the first half of the year. Numbering the phone with a two-digit number and rebranding the phone with a new name are some of the options on the table.”
LG first rolled out the the Optimus G in September 2012, only to drop “Optimus” from its flagship smartphones for the G2 the following year in 2013. Fast forward to 2016, when the company launched the V smartphone brand and we’ve now got two top-tier phone releases a year – the G series around February, and the V series in the latter half of the year.
LG have since confirmed to The Investor, a South Korean investment news site, that a rebranding project is currently underway for the G line of smartphones:
“Rebranding flagship models is nothing new, and Samsung and Apple have done so for their own flagships,”
Whilst it has been confirmed that a rebrand is on the cards for the flagship G series of smartphones, the company did not confirm what the new and rebranded name will be.
LG is likely to unveil its new high-end smartphone at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month, the world’s biggest mobile tradeshow. Its former flagships, the G5 and G6 smartphones, were launched at the trade show in the same month in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and went on sale around March or April of the same year.
Some market watchers have been hinting that LG has been mulling a new numbering system, based on the preconception that a lower number could indicate an outdated phone. A good example of this is based on its fellow country competitor, Samsung, skipped the Galaxy Note 6 to go straight to the Note 7 in 2016, while tech giant Apple jumped from the iPhone 8 to the iPhone X, which was aimed to commemorate the (technically) 10-year anniversary of the phone brand.
We will be keeping an eye out on events and hitting the ground at MWC next month and it will be interesting to see if the new branding is applied to the 2018 flagship G smartphone.
Samsung did not jump from note 5 to note 7 to have a higher number ,
it was simply to bring the S series and note series to parity so one model did not look like it was a year behind.
That’s exactly the point they are making – lower numbers can give the impression of an outdated phone