LG Profits Plummet as Smartphones Lose Steam

LG today announced that its third-quarter profit has plunged, as losses in its smartphone business widened. 

The South Korean company earned $6.73 million in the July-September period, down 99 percent from a profit of $733 million a year earlier. Sales in the third quarter fell 2 percent to $11.2 billion.

LG has struggled in the mobile handset sector, where competition from the iPhone and hugely-popular Android-based smart phones from rivals such as HTC and Samsung dominate the market. As a result, phone sales for LG dropped 10 percent to 28.4 million in the third quarter from 31.6 million in the same period last year.

Losses also grew to a record $270 million and margins dropped to a negative 10 percent, reflecting a weak lineup of smart phones and growing development and marketing costs to boost faltering sales of low-priced models.

The flat financial results has increased the pressure. Koo Bon-Joon, a member of LG's founding family, took over as CEO earlier this month, charged with turning around its mobile phone business. Koo has replaced the heads of the struggling phone and TV divisions and begun investing heavily in the research and development of new products.

LG has much riding on its Optimus One model, running on the popular Android platform, and the Optimus 7 based on Microsoft's Windows system. The company unveiled both in October, hoping it will help LG gain traction in the smart phone market.

The low-end Optimus One device has sold 200,000 units since its launch three weeks ago. LG is angling to sell at least 10 million units of the handset.

But whether it is enough for the world's number three mobile phone maker to recover from record losses in the third quarter and turn itself around quickly in a highly competitive smart phone market remains to be seen. 

Product Summary

The good: The LG Voyager VX10000 has a cutting-edge design with a brilliant touch screen and a spacious keyboard. It offers a generous features set that includes EV-DO support, V Cast Mobile TV Bluetooth, a top-notch Web browser, and an integrated GPS application. And if that's not enough, its call quality was excellent.

The bad: The LG Voyager VX10000's camera lacks such extra options as a flash and Wi-Fi. The touch screen can be clunky at times, and the streaming video quality and EV-DO connection speed were uneven.

The bottom line: Though we had some minor complaints here and there, the Voyager's sleek design, generous feature set and excellent performance make it the best LG messaging and multimedia phone by far.

Specs: Band / mode: CDMA 800/1900; Talk time: Up to 240 min; Combined with: With digital camera / digital player

Price range: $99.99 - $549.99

LG Decoy (Verizon Wireless)

Product Summary

The good: The LG Decoy comes with a built-in Bluetooth headset that stows away in the back of the phone. It has nice tactile keys, an easy-to-use interface, and features include a 2-megapixel camera, EV-DO, stereo Bluetooth, a music player, and V Cast support. It also has pretty good call quality. The Bluetooth headset also supports A2DP, so you can use it for calls as well as music.

The bad: The LG Decoy has a very glossy finish that makes it prone to smudges, and the display can be difficult to see under bright lights. The included Bluetooth headset has skinny volume controls, and does not have noise reduction or echo canceling technology.

The bottom line: The LG Decoy is an excellent phone on its own, but the addition of a built-in Bluetooth headset puts it over the top.

Specs: Band / mode: CDMA2000 1X 1900/800; Talk time: Up to 230 min; Combined with: With digital camera / digital player

Price range: $149.99 - $499.99

LG Reveals KF300 Slim Fashion Phone

Fashion phones seem to be the in thing these days. 'If it ain't flashy it's trashy' – seems to be the sort of thing making waves in the mobile phone circuit these days. With Samsung's G600 Belle that recently debuted, LG has one to show off as well, their new KF300.

The KF300, to be brutally honest, while it looks slim and sleek does give off a bit of a girls-only type vibe. And that’s not a bad thing ladies. It’s a flip phone with a 2.2-inch QVGA display on the inside and a 1.3-inch TFT screen on the outside. The external screen has a resolution of 128 x 160 pixels and the inside has a 240 x 320 pixel resolution with 256K colors. It’s quite the feature rich phone with a 2 megapixel camera with auto-focus to boot, Bluetooth, microSD card support, an FM radio as well as a media player. The KF300 will also support EDGE / GPRS. From the images you’ll also see that there are also a few shortcut keys located right under the screen. It also has a five way nav-pad and rather large keys which is surely a good thing.

The LG KF300 will be available in black and pink. Unfortunately there seems to be no price tag associated with the handset yet. Stay Tuned.

LG,KF300,Slim,TFT,2 Megapixel

LG Brings The Interactive KF600 to India

Thursday, 3 April 2008

LG Electronics India has announced the launch of its 2008 iF product design award winning mobile phone LG KF600.

The handset boasts of a sleek design and dynamic graphic interface themes. It has eight integrated graphic themes that give the phone a different character that can act as an extension of its owner's personality. The InteractPad replaces physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys that change to fit the task at hand. The handset also has a scratch resistant screen.

Anil Arora, Business Group Head, GSM, LGEIL said, "The LG KF600 and the InteractPad reflect LG's commitment in making its handsets easier to use through improved user interface technology. Usability is truly at the centre of this handset's design and it represents LG's latest achievement in making phones that connect with their users. This handset offers a mere glimpse into a newly emerging trend in the mobile market. LG is researching and developing new ways to improve usability and will continue focus on features that add practical benefits for users."

The LG KF600's InteractPad and its virtual menu keys show the exact keys a user needs to complete the task at hand eliminating distractions. This is more flexible than standard hardware keys and eliminates the need to memorize exactly which key performs what function. These virtual keys are also larger and better spaced than physical keys, improving accuracy.

The phone includes multimedia features like a 3 mega-pixel camera, MP3 player, video recording, FM radio, Bluetooth and more. Its ergonomic trapezoidal shape complements the phone's sleek, glossy finish perfectly.

LG,LG KF600,Interactive LG Phone

LG enV2, Motorola W755 in glorious detail

For any enV owners out there who managed to not splurge on a Voyager, it looks like you could end up being rewarded here something fierce. Verizon's true enV replacement, the VX9100, has now found its way into some glamorous press shots -- and while we're sure that reaction's going to be mixed, we're really digging the super-simple candybar appearance when the QWERTY clamshell is in its upright and locked position. Looks like it'll come in at least two colors to start -- black and maroon -- and we're also hearing that the name "enV2" is being tossed around in Verizon's documentation (surprise, surprise). Careful observers will note that the phone is sporting a USB port (either mini or micro, we're not sure) on the side, a promising sign that we'll finally be able to ditch those custom LG chargers in the not-too-distant future.

We also got hold of a portion of the Motorola W755's user guide -- nothing too inspiring, we suppose, but if there's one thing Verizon needs, it's another midrange flip. We kid, we kid.

LG enV2,Motorola W755,QWERTY,

LG Viewty

As nice of a phone as the LG Viewty may be, it gets a little boring in black after a while. Then, another little while after that, it gets boring in silver. It's cool, though, because LG's just released a pink version for its domestic market -- and it can keep doing this all day, if you catch our drift. The company is throwing around the term "Pink Beauty" for this particular version (which seems both appropriate and a little disturbing at the same time) and is targeting it squarely at the fairer sex. A little presumptuous, perhaps? Look for it to start selling tomorrow for 730,000 won (about $752).

Keywords : LG,Viewty,Mobile,Phone