(Reuters) - LG Electronics on Friday opened its first factory in the U.S. for assembling electric-vehicle charging stations as the South Korean electronics giant looks to capture a share in the fast-growing market dominated by market leader ChargePoint (NYSE:CHPT).
Based in Forth Worth, Texas, the company's 100 thousand square feet new factory has an annual capacity of 12 thousand units, LG said in a statement.
The company already has a distribution center in the city.
LG, a high-end TV manufacturer, has been trying to diversify its business into fresh sectors like EV charging and digital healthcare.
It acquired South Korean EV charger provider AppleMango in 2022 as part of its foray into the sector.
The company is entering a highly competitive charging market, dominated by companies like ChargePoint Holdings and Elon Musk-led-Tesla, as federal funding and government incentives have helped to expand the EV charging network in the United States.
The number of available charging ports in the U.S. nearly doubled from late 2019 to the first quarter of 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.
The facility will initially assemble Level-2 smaller portable wall chargers and produce Level-3 touch-screen display models later in the year.