teleguy
Enthusiast
Mar 14, 2005, 10:22 AM
Post #1 of 1
(672 views)
|
Ok, LG users. I gotta say this article took me totally by surprise.
LG expects to become the LARGEST seller of cell phones in US market with 20 million this year. (And another 20m in Europe and 70m altogether worldwide?)
Now is your shot at telling why LG phones are SO GREAT that this doesn't seem out of reach. Or maybe why from your experience or viewpoint, you think they DON'T DESERVE the top spot.
Either way, tell us about LG and their phones. I know relatively little about them and have no idea why they think they can be Numero Uno.
LG targets 2005 cell phone sales at 70m
LG Electronics Inc., the world's fastest growing mobile-phone maker, said it is targeting global sales of 70 million units this year and expects most of the growth to come from European third-generation markets.
The compnay, which had a 6.5 percent market share of the global mobile-phone sector last year, expects the world market for the third-generation WCDMA phones to reach 50 million units in 2005 and said it hopes to supply 10 million of them.
"With wireless networks becoming more sophisticated in developed markets such as North America and Europe, we expect more people to switch their old handsets for more advanced products, which should be a significant growth opportunity for us," said Park Mun-hwa, chief executive of LG Electronics' mobile communications division.
"We have set a goal of selling around 20 million phones in European markets this year, taking about 10 percent of the regional market and solidifying our fast start last year in WCDMA handsets," he said.
LG Electronics was the fourth-largest mobile-phone maker by sales last year, controlling about 6.5 percent of the global market. The company sold about 4 million WCDMA phones to European operators such as Vodafone, Hutchison and Orange. LG Electronics is also under contract to supply WCDMA phones to U.S. operator Singular this year.
Park said the company expects to sell 20 million handsets to U.S. code-division multiple access operators this year - a market estimated to support around 60 million phones - and become the largest supplier to the sector.
The global mobile-phone market is expected to reach 730 million units this year from 650 million in 2004.
Park said his company will put its technology development for high-speed downlink packet access on the fast-track. The compnay is in talks with a well-known European operator to provide them HSDPA-enabled handsets, according to Park, and expects to supply several million units by the end of this year or early next year. Park declined to comment on whether the company plans to provide HSDPA-enabled handsets to Korean WCDMA operators SK Telecom Co. and KT Freetel Co. this year.
HSDPA systems are designed to deliver data at a peak rate of 14.4 mbps, providing faster connection than current WCDMA networks that offer a peak data rate of 2 mbps. LG Electronics revealed a prototype HSDPA transmission system and handset with its Canadian busines partner Nortel Corp. last month.
"We will have an HSDPA phone on the market by the latter half of this year, with most thrid-generation operators intending to upgarde their networks to support the new spec," said Park.
By Kim Tong-hyung
|
