South Korea’s second-largest appliance firm, LG Electronics, has announced it will be closing down its mobile phone business, after losing billions of dollars in recent years.

The company announced Monday, April 5 that the phone production unit has recorded losses for 23 consecutive quarters since 2015, with the cumulative deficit reaching about 5 trillion won ($4.4 billion) by the end of last year.

The firm was once considered a pioneer of the Android operating system, collaborating with Google in the early 2010s but it has struggled to increase sales, entering the market late and facing tough competition from cheaper Chinese rivals such as Huawei.

The division has “failed to produce results” amid “intensifying price competition among major competitors in the entry-level mobile phone market”, the company said in a statement.

The decision will enable the firm to “focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components”, robotics and smart homes, it added.