LG Electronics' chief said during CES 2018 it will no longer regularly launch smartphones as it has done over the past years, in a strategic move to help its struggling smartphone business.

"We will unveil new smartphones when it is needed. But we will not launch it just because other rivals do," said LG Electronics Vice Chairman Cho Sung-jin on Wednesday during a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He was responding to a question on when the firm would launch its new flagship smartphone LG G7.

"We plan to retain existing models longer by, for instance, unveiling more variant models of the G series or V series," Cho said.

A separate report from South Korea claimed that LG was dumping the G brand and will not name its first flagship phone this year as the G7.

The CEO said the company considered the G6 and V30 well done products and will continue to push "good platforms" like those products.

The South Korean giant currently launches the G brand in the first half and V brand in the second every year, but its mobile business has posted 10-straight quarters.

As for why the strategy on smartphones will be changed, the chief said, "We found it is important to retain a good platform for a long (time) and concerns rise over the supply of lithium materials."

The announcement appears to reflect the firm's scale-down of its phone business amid slow growth in the global smartphone market in contrast to the firm's appliances and other sectors.

LG's mobile communications unit is estimated to report a financial loss for the 11th straight quarter in the October-December period last year.