LG has announced that it will postpone sales of its first 5G smartphone in South Korea until further notice. The V50 ThinQ was scheduled for release on April 19, but it says concerns about customer satisfaction with how the device will perform on the new network are keeping it off the market.

The company goes on to say that it is cooperating with Qualcomm and domestic carriers on the software, hardware, and network levels to ensure smooth 5G reception by the time the V50 will launch.

Earlier this month, the nation's carriers began selling the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G. One carrier, KT, proclaimed it had made 30,000 sales in the first day or so. But users quickly saw issues with the device trying to switch between 5G and 4G networks — some had to reboot their phones several times to reacquire a cellular signal. Samsung and the telecoms have repeatedly updated software for their consumers and their towers, respectively, in order to get a handle on the problem.

Early networks will have growing pains, but the situation allows for LG to, in essence, double-check its work before pushing forward — whatever trouble it wants to avoid on its end, it would be smart to do so before the device goes public.

In the United States, Sprint is expected to sell the V50 "this spring" while Verizon will hold off until the summer. Verizon is also rumored to sell the Galaxy S10 5G from May 16. And based off of our admittedly limited, but firsthand testing of Verizon's 5G network with the Moto Z3 and the 5G Moto Mod, we don't see much of a concern with regards to seamless network switching — just the tiny coverage ranges. But only time will tell if we see more complaints arise. As to the scene in South Korea, LG seems to have enough reason to stay cautious with a device launch right now.

UPDATE: 2019/05/03 6:26am PDT BY JULES WANG

New date in South Korea: May 10

BusinessKorea has gotten word from its sources that South Korean carriers have agreed to a new sales date for the V50: May 10.

The company is seen to be walking a tightrope between waiting for 5G networks' early bumps to smooth out and stalling for too long before this year's foldable phones vacuum up all the attention. The V50 has a Dual Screen case accessory which LG is trying to market as a fail-safe, versatile option to the Huawei Mate X and Samsung Galaxy Fold.

Source: LG (Google Translate)