LG sells five million LTE smartphones, plans 'second to none' lineup soon and girds for patent battles
While LG's dollars and cents return on its cellphones have been up and down this year, the company just announced that since starting the LTE trend with the Revolution in May 2011 it's sold five million high-speed data connected handsets and has no plans to slow down. The counter ticked over three million back in May, four million in June and, according to LG, sales continued at a pace of one phone every two and a half seconds. That includes two million Optimus LTEs, over 500,000 Optimus Vus and about the same number of Optimus LTE IIs in the first 70 days alone. Now the Korean company is preparing to take its Optimus Vu phablet global, and CEO Dr. Jon-seok Park says its LTE phones in the next few months will be "second to none." Finally, there's a note about LG having the "largest overall" total number of patents, claimed to be worth $8 billion, which is possibly intended to ward off the kind of patent trouble currently chasing Samsung.
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LG ACHIEVES SALE OF FIVE MILLION LTE SMARTPHONES
With One of the Widest Selection of LTE Devices, LG Follows
Strategy of Different Phones for Different Consumer Needs
SEOUL, Aug. 15, 2012 -– LG Electronics (LG) announced that it reached a new milestone with global sales of five million LTE smartphones to date. After reaching sales of four million LTE smartphones last month, an additional one million smartphones were sold in the month of July -– one LTE smartphone roughly every two and a half seconds.
LG released the first LTE smartphone "RevolutionTM by LG" in the U.S. in May of last year through the largest carrier Verizon Wireless and expanded its LTE target markets with its global LTE smartphones.
Focusing on the key markets with LTE capabilities, LG saw strong acceptance by offering diverse LTE smartphones according to consumer needs. Currently, more than ten LG LTE smartphones are available in countries where LTE service is available, including Korea, U.S., Japan and select markets in Europe and Asia.
Although Optimus LTE takes the title of the most popular LTE smartphone from LG with two million in sales, Optimus Vu: has sold over 500,000 units since March, demonstrating the device's acceptance as it prepares for its global roll-out. And with the release of the industry's first 2GB RAM LTE smartphone Optimus LTE II in May, LG saw the fastest sales among all LTE smartphones with this device reaching half a million units in the first 70 days.
According to a report by Jefferies & Company, LG is the global leader in LTE patents with a value of over USD 8 billion. And intellectual property consulting firm TechIPM analyzed LTE-related patents registered to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by the second quarter of this year and reported that LG held the largest overall number of patents as well.
"Sales of global LTE smartphones are expected to increase ten-fold this year from last year," said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Mobile Communications Company. "With that in mind, we are planning to introduce an even more impressive LTE line-up in the next several months second to none."
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