History
LG Corp. founder Koo In-Hwoi established Lak-Hui Chemical Industrial Corp. in 1947. In 1952, Lak-Hui (pronounced "Lucky", currently LG Chem) became the first Korean company to enter the plastic industry. As the company expanded its plastic business, it established Goldstar Co. Ltd. (currently LG Electronics Inc.) in 1958. Both companies Lucky and Goldstar merged and formed Lucky-Goldstar.
Goldstar produced South Korea's first radio. Many consumer electronics were sold under the brand name Goldstar, while some other household products (not available outside South Korea) were sold under the brand name of Lucky. The Lucky brand was famous for hygiene products such as soaps and HiTi laundry detergents, but the brand was mostly associated with its Lucky and Perioe toothpaste. Even today, LG continues to manufacture some of these products for the South Korean market, such as laundry detergent.
In 1995, to compete better in the Western market, the Lucky-Goldstar Corporation was renamed "LG", (the abbreviation of "Lucky-Goldstar"). The company also associates the letters LG with the company's tagline "Life's Good", which is actually a backronym. Since 2009, LG has owned the domain name LG.com.
In 1996 LG formed a joint venture with IBM; it was later terminated.
On 1 April 2000, LG Chemical was split into three separate companies, namely LGCI, LG Chem, and LG Household & Health Care. Later, in July 2007, LG Chem merged with LG Petrochemical.
Since 2001, LG has two joint ventures with Royal Philips Electronics: LG Philips Display and LG Philips LCD, but Philips sold off its shares in late 2008. In 2005, LG entered into a joint venture with Nortel Networks, creating LG-Nortel Co. Ltd.
On 1 December 2012, comScore announced that LG was the third largest mobile manufacturer in the US, with Apple overtaking them to second place.
LG has owned the LG Twins baseball club in Seoul, South Korea, since 1989.
The company logo of LG features the letters L and G, presented in the form of a smiling human face.
Read more about this topic: LG Group
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