LG aims for #2 spot by 2012, plans new “Black label” iPhone competitor, Prada III phone and extreme premium brand

LG has made some pretty impressive strides in a cellphone market during these last few years. With the demise of Motorola and the problems ailing Sony Ericsson last year, they’ve even managed to become #3 cellphone maker in the world.

And LG does not plan to stop here. In an interview to Yonhap News Agency, Ahn Seung-kwon, president for LG’s mobile business, said that they plan to become #2 cellphone maker in the world by 2012. Which means that they plan to overtake Samsung in the next 3 years.

There were also some other interesting tidbits that Mr. Ahn let drop during the interview. Among them are:

• in Q4 LG will launch a new “Black label” series phone, which will be positioned to compete with the iPhone
• LG is pretty happy with their luxury “Prada” phone line and is working on another Prada handset
• LG also has a plan to move even deeper into a luxury cellphone market, by creating it’s own extreme premium brand,  “similar to Toyota’s Lexus and Nokia’s Vertu”

Well, sounds pretty ambitious and interesting to me.

Will LG succeed to get to a #2 spot in worldwide cellphone vendor rankings? Unless Samsung or Nokia screws up in some major way, I strongly doubt that.

On the other hand, #3 spot is LG’s to keep now. They seem to have a pretty strong product line-up, smart business strategy and keep executing on it very well. While LG’s closest competitors – Motorola and Sony Ericsson keep sliding into irrelevance. So I expect the gap between them to widen further.

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Posted on 02 Jul 09 - Filed in LG, Wireless - Comments - Written by Staska

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