Tech Profits
LG Electronics has become the world’s number three in terms of revenue from sales of smart phones for the first time since it began the business.
LG had a 3.2% share in the global smartphone market in terms of sales revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012, beating HTC (2.9%), Sony (2.8%) and Blackberry (2.3%) at once. Its ranking jumped up five steps from the same period of 2011 (8th), but it still showed a big gap in market shares with the world’s second smartphone seller Samsung Electronics.
In truth, LG fell behind some Chinese companies in terms of sales volume but its sales revenue was big enough to become the world’s third because its high-end products including Optimus G had a good response from the market, said analysts. LG Electronics had recorded large amount of operating losses in its mobile phone business for two consecutive years of 2010 and 2011. After that, it drastically cut the proportion of feature phones (low-performance phones), focused on middle- and high-priced smartphones and tried hard to differentiate products seeking a rebound chance. Finally, its HD-display Optimus LTE broke the sales record of 1 million units in just three months after launch at the end of 2011, and it succeeded in turning to a surplus in the first quarter of 2012, after eight quarters of strenuous efforts.
A source from the company said, “The situation has completely changed from three years ago when we lagged behind global players in the launch of new products. We can make a leap again because we have the largest number of patent rights to the long-term evolution (LTE) technologies.”
As LTE phones have been gaining more popularity, LG Electronics has recently launched the “F Series” and reinforced its flagship products such as the “G Series,” the “Vu Series” and the “L Series.” LG aims to sell a quarterly average of 10 million units of smart phones.