LS Chairman Koo Ja-eun, Visiting CES for the 5th Year: "A Sense of Drastic Change in China, It Must Become More Urgent"

Visiting CES for the 5th Year Since 2018
"Business in the US Will Be Good Even Under Trump"

Gu Ja-eun, Chairman of LS, met with reporters on the 9th (local time) at CES 2025, the world's largest electronics and IT exhibition held in Las Vegas, USA.

He shared his impressions of the exhibition, saying, "Seeing the Chinese companies (that have closely caught up) made me realize we need to be more desperate."

Koo Ja-eun, Chairman of LS Group, visited LG Electronics' 'CES 2025' exhibition booth on the 9th (local time) to look over the exhibits. Photo by Yonhap News

Chairman Gu stated, "We used to produce electricity and wires in protected environments, but seeing the fierce competition among home appliance companies and startups at CES made me think that perhaps we lacked a sense of urgency until now."

Chairman Gu visits CES every year to observe technology trends. Except for the COVID-19 period, this year marks his fifth visit to Las Vegas since 2018.

This year, after touring the Eureka Pavilion where startups gathered on the previous day (the 8th), Chairman Gu visited booths of Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Chinese companies Hisense and TCL, as well as Japan's Panasonic on the morning of the 9th. LS Vice Chairman Myung Noh-hyun and Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) of affiliates accompanied him.

When asked about the "most memorable companies at this event," he said, "I saw TCL and Hisense and thought about how much they have grown compared to 20 years ago," adding, "Looking at China, you can imagine how agonizing it must be for Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics every single day."

He continued, "Now, it seems that artificial intelligence (AI) and software, rather than hardware, will dominate the world," and added, "It will be important to integrate AI into our production, purchasing, and quality processes, and we need to develop software that suits us."

Regarding the "second Trump administration," he said, "Whether it's Trump or anyone else, I don't really care," and added, "The wire business in the U.S. market will continue to improve, and the group as a whole will do well."

Recently, LS's U.S. subsidiary Essex Solutions successfully raised funds before its IPO. LS Cable also invested $682.75 million last July in its U.S. submarine business subsidiary LS Greenlink to start construction of a factory in Chesapeake, Virginia.

When asked about this year's performance outlook, Chairman Gu explained, "The economy itself is very bad, but I expect it to be similar to or slightly better than last year."

Meanwhile, at the LG Electronics booth that day, Chairman Gu showed interest by closely examining LG Electronics' speaker brand 'LG XBOOM' and asking officials questions such as "How did you collaborate with will.i.am?" and "Is LG Electronics' AI business team bigger than Samsung Electronics'?"