LG Electronics recently filed to trademark the terms “Icon” and “Iconic” with the USPTO which the company’s filings associated with smartphones and smartwatches, respectively, as first noticed by industry insider Evan Blass. The South Korean original equipment manufacturer never had a product marketed as the “Icon” or any derivative of that word, with the development being indicative of an entirely new line of products. According to recent reports, LG is presently considering rebranding its G series of Android flagships but has yet to decide on the extent of that effort. As such, the company may opt to advertise the successor to the LG G6 as the LG G9 in order to catch up with its competitors in the “numbers game” and not risk having its products perceived as weaker than something like the upcoming Galaxy S9 lineup by consumers but may also change the name of its high-end series in its entirety.
Save for the fact that LG’s trademark applications associated the term “Icon” with smartphones, there’s no concrete evidence linking the word to the upcoming reimagining of the G product family. The “Iconic” series raises even more questions as the company’s smartwatch-related efforts were largely unconnected in terms of being unified under a single, instantly recognizable sub-brand; in recent years, the tech giant launched offerings such as the LG Watch Style, G Watch, and Watch Urbane. Its latest wearable duo released in early 2017 was praised by reviewers but didn’t end up achieving a notable level of commercial success, making the possibility of similarly named sequels unlikely.
On the smartphone front, LG just recently revealed it’s dropping its fixed release timetables for new handset products and won’t be following suit with their competitors, citing concerns about the sustainability of global lithium supply channels. Official reasoning aside, the company’s mobile unit has been in the red for ten consecutive quarters now and is expected to post its 11th quarterly loss in a row later this month, having been consistently bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. The underwhelming performance of the division is likely what prompted the newly announced smartphone strategy shift on LG’s part, though the successor to the G6 flagship that likely won’t be called the G7 is still expected to be introduced in late February at Barcelona, Spain-based MWC 2018.
