LG Electronics expects its smart home of the future, with appliances that learn your routines and robots that do the chores, to find some of its biggest buyers in India, even as its growing manufacturing capacity in the country is increasingly being geared to making those same export-ready premium, AI-led products. This dual push now sits at the centre of the South Korean major’s plan to double revenue from three emerging markets, India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, by 2030, chief executive Lyu Jae-cheol said.
On the consumer side, the idea is what LG calls the “Zero Labour Home”, a home where the housework is done for you, or left to you only if you choose to. For now that means smart LG appliances that learn a household’s habits through on-device intelligence, tied together by an app called ThinQ that lets the home run by phone or voice and coordinates everything once the routines are set. ThinQ, which started as a simple app to control LG appliances from a phone, has kept getting smarter through automatic software updates, and now works with more than 50,000 devices from hundreds of brands through an open ecosystem.
From smart appliances to home robots
Its most futuristic vision of a home comes through CLOiD, a humanoid home robot LG unveiled at CES 2026. It is designed to move through a home on its own, interact with the people in it and the appliances around it, and take on chores. It is not on sale yet, with a commercial launch targeted before 2030.
But the shift CLOiD points to, towards premium, connected, AI-led appliances, is already under way in India. “India is entering a transformative phase of home appliance premiumisation,” said Young Min Hwang, director, home solutions, LG Electronics India, citing rapid adoption of premium products. Some pieces of the AI home are already on shelves, from AI Wash 2.0 washing machines to other ThinQ-connected appliances with app control and remote diagnostics. Meanwhile, demand for large-panel televisions, French-door refrigerators, fully automatic washing machines and 5-star air conditioners is climbing, lifting average selling prices through the last year, it said, driven by rising incomes, rapid urbanisation and a wave of home upgrades.
But India is not only trading up. It is also buying in. The country is already LG’s single largest market in the world for room air conditioners, by industry estimates. However, appliance penetration is still just 20-30%, so unlike mature markets driven by replacement, India has millions of people buying their first appliance.
Global Manufacturing Hub
Increasingly, India is also where LG plans to build. Its plants at Greater Noida and Pune are being folded into the global AI roadmap so next-generation components are made locally. A third and larger plant, a roughly Rs 5,000 crore investment, is rising at Sri City in Andhra Pradesh; it starts late this year, making air conditioners first, then refrigerators, washing machines and AC compressors through 2029. Investor relations head Aeron Kim said LG plans to double its India capacity and lift exports well above the current 6-7%.
Those moves are showing up on the top line. Combined revenue from India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil reached KRW 6.2 trillion (about $4.5 billion) in 2025, up more than 20% over 2023 and growing at more than double LG’s global pace, said Lyu. He called the three markets “at the absolute forefront” of LG’s long-term strategy, a way to balance slower-growing strongholds in Korea, North America and Europe.
However, the announcements also come at a time when a weakening rupee and high commodity costs have squeezed margins despite strong revenue growth for LG Electronics India, which listed in October 2025, in a Rs 11,607 crore offer for sale by its Korean parent. Its net profit fell 23.5% in FY26 to Rs 1,685 crore. In the March quarter it slipped 8.2% to Rs 693 crore, even as that quarter brought a record Rs 8,054 crore in revenue. Cost discipline, a premiumisation push, deeper localisation and rising exports will help recover those margins, the company says.
(The writer is in Seoul, South Korea at the invitation of LG Electronics)