LG Electronics on Track for Recovery After Solid Earnings Growth — Update

By Kwanwoo Jun

LG Electronics is on course for an earnings recovery this year after resilient growth in its home-appliance and television businesses boosted net profit in the latest quarter.

The consumer-electronics giant posted a double-digit increase in second-quarter net profit that narrowly missed market expectations, continuing its earnings recovery after a turnaround in the first three months of 2026.

The results come as the South Korean company, long a global household name, continues to expand into new businesses, such as cooling systems for artificial-intelligence data centers and robotics.

LG Electronics has also stepped up its cost-efficiency and restructuring efforts as logistics and raw-material costs rise amid geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Europe, helping improve profitability recently.

A one-time U.S. tariff refund supported the second-quarter earnings improvement, the company said Thursday. On the earnings call, LG executives estimated the one-off benefit at about 300 billion won, or $207.9 million. The Trump administration has been told to start returning companies more than $130 billion in duties it collected in the global tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court in February.

Net profit climbed 28% from a year earlier to 781.30 billion won, equivalent to $541.5 million, for the three months through June. Analysts had expected 802.72 billion won, according to a FactSet consensus.

Revenue rose 15% to 23.827 trillion won, while operating profit came in at 1.579 trillion won. Both figures--the highest for any second quarter in LG's history--were largely in line with the company's preliminary estimates.

The company said Thursday that premium home appliances and TVs led the sales growth. Sales of vehicle components, including high-end infotainment systems, also continued rising.

Seeking new growth drivers, the company has expanded into AI and robotics, two emerging technology fields reshaping industries.

Earlier this week, LG secured Nvidia's certification for its coolant distribution unit, deepening its collaboration with the U.S. chip giant in the AI data-center cooling market.

The company also recently established a robotics business unit that should consolidate all robot-related businesses. It is accelerating its push into robotics, advancing the proof-of-concept feasibility test for its CLOiD home robot--designed to autonomously handle household chores such as cooking, cleaning and laundry--to 2026 from 2027.

LG shares finished 1.7% lower Thursday. The stock remains more than 60% higher this year, buoyed by hopes for a strong earnings recovery.

Write to Kwanwoo Jun at kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 30, 2026 05:51 ET (09:51 GMT)