This infographic, originally published by Korea Financial Times, has been reconstructed using generative AI (Gemini).
LG Electronics CEO Ryu Jae-cheol's Robot Ambitions: What's Behind the Competitiveness
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[Korea Financial Times, Gwak Horyung]
Even amid global economic headwinds and mounting tariff barriers, LG Electronics has remained remarkably resilient — and the driving force behind that stability is the power of its core business: home appliances. The steady cash flows and financial credibility generated by the home appliance segment are serving as a solid launchpad for new ventures, including chillers and robotics.
This brings to mind the "fundamental competitiveness" of Ryu Jae-cheol, President and CEO of LG Electronics, who began his career at the Home Appliance Research Lab of GoldStar (now LG Electronics) and climbed to the top after steering the company to global leadership in home appliances.
LG Electronics' Altman Z-score has shown a gradual declining trend: 2.51 in 2021, 2.50 in 2022, 2.36 in 2023, 2.18 in 2024, and 2.15 in 2025.
At first glance, this appears to indicate a year-on-year deterioration in financial health. Among the sub-indicators, the profitability metric (operating income/total assets) — which carries the highest weighting in the Z-score model — fell from 0.072 in 2021 to 0.036 in 2025, before a modest recovery to 0.040 in the first quarter of this year.
The biggest drag on overall corporate profitability is the underperformance of the MS (Media Solution) Division, which oversees TVs, monitors, and PCs. The profitability problem is clearly concentrated in the television segment.
The TV division, which generated an operating profit of KRW 1.1 trillion in 2021, recorded a loss of KRW 750 billion last year. The primary cause is attributed to a surge in costs and a loss of market share as the company battles Chinese manufacturers such as TCL and Hisense, which have been aggressively competing on price.
In the first quarter of this year, however, the division successfully returned to profitability, driven by workforce optimization measures — including voluntary early retirement programs implemented preemptively last year — and an expanded push into higher-margin OLED TVs. Analysts caution, however, that the road to full business normalization remains long, with losses expected to resume in the second half of the year.
Nonetheless, LG Electronics continues to benefit from a solid floor of support built on the longstanding product credibility it has established on the global stage.
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