According to a report by The Korea Economic Daily, LG has terminated its partnership with Meta just three months after they announced a collaboration to develop extended reality (XR) devices, including virtual headsets.
The decision to part ways has prompted LG to seek a new partner for the operating system and software required for its upcoming XR devices, which are set to be unveiled next year. According to insiders, Amazon is emerging as a strong candidate for this new partnership.
In February, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Seoul and held discussions with LG Chief Executive Cho Joo-wan (William Cho) and LG Corp. COO Kwon Bong-seok. The meeting was aimed at strengthening their partnership in the XR sector.
At the time, LG Electronics announced that both companies had agreed to co-develop next-generation XR devices, including an XR headset, and to cooperate on artificial intelligence devices.
The collaboration aimed to leverage LG’s hardware technology and Meta’s AI expertise to create an XR headset by the first half of 2025. Their goal was to outperform Apple Inc.’s latest mixed reality (MR) headset, the Vision Pro, in terms of performance.
However, industry sources have revealed that LG recently decided to discontinue its collaboration with Meta on XR devices.
An industry insider explained, “There were some differences between LG and Meta while discussing XR devices. LG requested an end to the collaboration because it believed there was not much synergy from their XR partnership.”
A successful partnership would have seen LG using Meta’s OS Horizon, embedded in the Meta Quest Pro XR device, in its new XR offerings. Meta, in turn, could have utilized LG’s extensive global sales network and advanced OLED panel technology for its XR devices.
While Amazon currently lacks its own XR operating system, there is speculation that Google’s Android could be used for LG’s next XR headset. Alternatively, LG might pursue independent development, leveraging its own WebOS, which is currently used in its smart TVs.
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