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LG
Electronics Inc said this month it would wind down its
smartphone division by the end of July because of a prolonged
sales slump.
Ryu, 53, who has collected nearly 90 devices over 23 years, said
he started using LG phones because he liked their design and
creative functions, but the audio quality made him fall in love
with them.
"I went all in on the LG phones due to the audio," he said.
At his house in Anyang, south of Seoul, Ryu has a room dedicated
to the devices and the parts and tools to fix them.
LG, which had been making mobile phones for about a quarter of a
century, ultimately fell behind rivals Apple Inc and Samsung
Electronics Co Ltd, in part due to lacklustre marketing and slow
software updates.
Its smartphone division logged nearly six years of losses,
totalling roughly $4.5 billion by the end of 2020.
"I think they were rushing to catch up (with Samsung),
sacrificing the quality ... (and) to cover up the issue, the
company was focusing too much on the design and other
functions," he said, and that led to repeat problems.
He was confident with his plan to use the LG phones "forever" as
he could buy parts online.
"It is easy to replace parts if you practise a little. I'm not
sure when the parts will be out of stock, but I'll continue to
use the LG phones as long as the parts are still being
supplied," he said.
Still, he was nostalgic about the shutdown of the business.
"A Samsung phone is like a smart friend and an Apple phone is
like a girlfriend to me. Then a LG phone is like a friend whom
I've shared the ups and downs of life together with. It is sad
to see the friend leaving. It is very sad," Ryu said.
(Reporting by Daewoung Kim and Heejung Jung; Writing by Tom
Hogue; Editing by Giles Elgood)
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