LG Display denied receiving a direct investment from Google after more than a year of rumors pointing to such a move circulating the industry, with the Seoul-based tech giant providing a comment on the matter in a Tuesday filing with the Korea Exchange. The Alphabet-owned company was previously said to have considered pumping some trillion won ($930 million) into LG’s display manufacturing arm so as to bolster the firm’s OLED business and ensure a steady supply of such displays for its future smartphones.
LG still claims its relationship with Google strengthened in a significant manner over the course of the last year, pointing to its involvement in the Pixel 2 project which saw it manufacture the Pixel 2 XL flagship launched last October, as well as its efforts to embrace the Google Assistant, both in terms of smart speakers and television sets. The South Korean original equipment manufacturer is also expected to become one of the first industry players to deliver a smartwatch that ships with Wear OS, a rebranded version of Android Wear, with information obtained by AndroidHeadlines last month pointing to that device launching as the LG Watch Timepiece and combining a touchscreen with physical clock arms.
The Pixel 2 series was manufactured by both HTC and LG, though the former may be dropped from the Pixel 3 project seeing how Google already purchased much of its talent earlier this year as part of a $1.1 billion deal that also provided it with unrestricted access to the Taiwanese OEM’s patent portfolio. LG remains a valuable partner of many phone makers in the industry due to its supply deals but has been struggling to find success with its own mobile products ever since the G3 released in mid-2014. The company most recently announced the G7 ThinQ, the world’s first smartphone with a dedicated Google Assistant button, yet another indicator of its relationship with Google strengthening.