South Korea's LG becomes first major smartphone brand to withdraw from market

South Korea's LG Electronics it will wind down its loss-making mobile division - a move that is set to make it the first major smartphone brand to completely withdraw from the market.

Its decision to pull out will leave its 10 percent share in North America, where it is the No. 3 brand, to be gobbled up by smartphone titans Apple and Samsung Electronics.

The division has logged nearly six years of losses totalling some $4.5 billion, and dropping out of the fiercely competitive sector would allow LG to focus on growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices and smart homes, it said in a statement.

LG was early to market with a number of cell phone innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras and was once in 2013 the world's third-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung and Apple.

While other well-known mobile brands like Nokia, HTC and Blackberry have also fallen from lofty heights, they have yet to disappear completely.

LG's current global share is about 2%. It shipped 23 million phones last year which compares with 256 million for Samsung, according to research provider Counterpoint.

In addition to North America, it does have a sizeable presence in Latin America, where it ranks as the No. 5 brand.

While rival Chinese brands such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi do not have much of a presence in the United States, in part due to frosty bilateral relations, their and Samsung's low to mid-range product offerings are set to benefit from LG's absence in Latin America, analysts said.

LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region, it added.

Talks to sell part of the business to Vietnam's Vingroup fell through due to differences about terms, sources with knowledge of the matter have said.

LG Elec shares have risen about 7% since a January announcement that it was considering all options for the business.