Are you enjoying the Nexus 5X? It’s the successor to the LG Nexus 5, launched in 2013. If so, you may want to hold it a little tighter than you’ve been holding it. LG says that it won’t be building a Nexus 5X successor this year. “LG needs to focus on its own brand,” said an LG spokesman at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2016). In short, there’ll be no 2016 Nexus 5X.
LG just announced its G5 smartphone at MWC on Sunday, February 21st, with the device featuring what the Korean manufacturer is calling a modular design. The bottom portion of the phone can be pulled out to replace the battery and connect other accessories such as LG’s 360 VR headset, its Cam Plus camera controls and battery pack, a Hi-Fi Plus speaker to increase the volume of music and movies, and other accessories (including LG’s Tone Platinum headphones) to it. The company’s ad slogan, “Life’s Better With Friends,” shows the company’s commitment to sell its users on accessories. Unfortunately, LG spent more time accentuating the accessories than it did the company’s newest smartphone — with LG going so far as to tell consumers “check our LG Newsroom” for the G5’s specs and features.
The 2015 Nexus 5X featured a 5.2-inch, 1080p display with 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (or 32GB), for a selling price of $379.99 for the 16GB model and $429.99 for the 32GB model. The LG Nexus 5X was designed to win over budget-friendly Android customers who wanted a device to upgrade to, after many were upset over the Motorola Nexus 6 launched a year earlier that had a surprising $649 price tag. The price tag wasn’t something diehard Nexus users were accustomed to.
The 2016 Nexus 5X may have actually been a part of the agenda, but LG is now saying that it intends to spend heavy money on marketing the LG G5 to such an extent that the company isn’t focusing on anything else this year. We don’t know what this means for the company’s newest and highest flagship, the LG V10, but we do know that LG is committed to selling the G5 so much that they never stop dreaming about it. The 2016 Nexus 5X would’ve offered a sweet spot, budget-wise, for customers, but LG may intend to sell its own G5 to this same customer base.
At the end of the day, we think it wise for LG to focus on marketing the G5, since the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are already posing problems for the handset with the majority of Android customers who are now returning to Samsung after their disappointment with last year’s Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. At the same time, however, when you’re LG, making little money on sales and boasting of extremely small market share, you can’t afford to turn away any customers — no matter how budget-friendly they may be. This decision will have both good and bad consequences, but LG seems to have their bottom line in mind.
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