LG Innotek employees promote the company's LiDAR and high-performance camera module products, Monday. Courtesy of LG Innotek

LG Innotek is looking to grow its automotive sensor business to have a 2 trillion won ($1.4 billion) annual revenue by 2030, the company said Monday.

"Based on the success equation of becoming the No. 1 in the mobile camera module business, we will develop the automotive sensors business into another No. 1 business, with annual sales of 2 trillion won by 2030," its CEO Moon Hyuk-soo said.

Among these, the company is focusing on high-performance LiDAR (light detection and ranging) for vehicles. This product, a sensor that emits a laser to measure distances by detecting the laser light reflected by objects, is an essential component for autonomous vehicles and is seeing a significant increase in demand.

To streamline its LiDAR-related business, LG Innotek established a dedicated LiDAR organization directly under the CEO at the beginning of this month, a move led by Moon to personally oversee the organization and strengthen the company's capabilities.

LG Innotek has been continuously strengthening its core competencies for LiDAR business development since 2015. Last year, it acquired 77 technology patents related to LiDAR from a U.S. autonomous driving startup. In total, the company holds over 300 LiDAR-related patents.

Besides LiDAR, the company said it is focusing on high value-added vehicle camera modules.

In the era of self-driving cars, vehicle camera modules need to fill the role of the driver's eyes, requiring more precise and advanced sensing functions.

To strengthen its competitiveness in this sector, the company signed a share investment agreement earlier this year with AOE Optronics, a Taiwanese lens manufacturer.

Additionally, LG Innotek introduced its high-performance heating camera module in February this year, which quickly defrosts vehicle camera lenses in extreme cold weather.

Regarding facility investment, LG Innotek has been expanding its factory in Mexico since last year after purchasing additional land. The new factory is scheduled to start mass production of vehicle camera modules in the second half of 2025.

"We have been growing Mexico as our production hub for vehicle camera modules because we are capitalizing on our geographical proximity to the North American region where our automotive customers are located," a company spokesperson said.