“I think LTE, high-definition and quad-core will be the key words this year. With fine-tuned technology and strategies, LG will recover our once-lost brand awareness,’’
That’s the plan for 2012, according to Park Jong-seok, head of LG’s handset division, in a comment to The Korea Times. Park said the company plans to sell 80 million handsets this year; 35 million of which will be smartphones and 8 million of those to have LTE capabilities.
The company’s smartphone division has undergone some challenges over the past two years. In 2010, LG’s CEO resigned mainly due to poor performance in the smartphone division. And midway through last year, Park cut smartphone sales estimates to 24 million sales in 2011, down from 30 million.
Unfortunately, adding hardware features alone isn’t a magical formula to smartphone success and I hope that LG realizes that. It was among the first to use a dual-core smartphone chip in 2011 with the Optimus 2X, but the phone didn’t impress the market. And it continues to bank on glasses-free 3-D phones, even though consumers don’t seem to be clamoring for such a function.
Trying to stand out from the crowded Android field is a challenge; perhaps the company should reconsider its move towards Android and invest more in Windows Phone where there is less competition.
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