LG To Launch Android Phones, Says Mobile Market Holding Up
Posted on: Wednesday, 17 June 2009, 06:30 CDT
Mobile phone maker LG Electronics Inc. said Tuesday that the market for its mobile phones is holding up well despite the global economic slowdown.The South Korea-based company also announced plans to launch three new mobile phone models this year that will run Google’s open-source Android operating system.
T-Mobile began selling the first Android-based phone known as the G1 last year.
"The market is actually holding up versus last year... I think the recession impact is less than what we expected last year," said Chang Ma, LG’s vice president of marketing strategy for mobile communications, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
Ma said the company was targeting a 10 percent market share this year.
"If you figure the market is about 1.1 billion, then our sales volume is supposed to be 110 million," he added.
In 2008, LG shipped 100.7 million handsets worldwide, achieving an operating profit margin of 11 percent . The company’s market share during the first quarter was 9.2 percent, up from 8.6 percent a year earlier, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
The company, the world\'s third largest mobile phone maker in shipment terms, lags behind Finland-based Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., also based in South Korea.
It said it is planning to launch three different devices during the second half of the year that will run the Android operating system. More are due out in 2010.
The worldwide market for mobile phones market has been hit hard by the widespread economic slowdown. Indeed, worldwide handset shipments declined 11.9 percent during the first quarter from a year earlier, to just 255.6 million units, according to a report by ABI Research.
Ma said LG was expecting a slow but steady improvement in demand during the second half of 2009.
Global handset sales will likely remain flat or fall slightly this year compared with last year, Ma predicted, rather than dropping 8 to 15 percent as many analysts forecast.
However, LG will not reduce prices in a bid to increase its market share, he said.
Ma’s remarks followed an announcement by rival Samsung on Monday, in which the company said it expected the global handset market to remain weak for the remainder of the year. However, Samsung voiced confidence of achieving its shipment goal of 200 million units this year.
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Image Credit: LG
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Source: redOrbit staff
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