The results for the quarter ending June 30 are in and LG Electronics posted a strong performance, with net income increasing from roughly 494.4 billion won (about $427 million) versus 267.3 billion a year ago.
More remarkably, handset unit sales grew 89 percent from a year ago, to 9.94 million sets. The strength continued in August, when LGE (LGEAF: Other OTC) registered a significant increase in 3G and US GSM phones. Quarter-to-August handset shipment rose to 24.9% QoQ (or about 7.8 million units). LGE has been one of the few global handset makers that have achieved sequential shipment growth and market share gains. Apparently LGE and a few other Japanese players have been outpacing the large handset manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola and Samsung) in the 3G arena. Smith Barney pegs LGE's global market share in the 3G segment at 26 percent, which is quite impressive. Perhaps some observers did under-estimate LGE's strong 3G performance. In Europe, for instance, LGE has a good presence (e.g. Hutchison 3, a leading W-CDMA operator).
Note: Telecoms Korea recently had a post about rumors that LG will reportedly sell its communication unit (except the handset division) to either Nortel or Cisco. Since I do not own a subscription to the site, I could not dig deeper into the story, but all my Google news searches have turned up empty thus far - any info will be much appreciated.