Generation UMTS

17th November, 2003

ASIA : Thanks to the rapid growth of its share in global mobile phone markets and the attention it is hoarding as a dark horse in the 3G cellular phone market, LG Electronics (LGE) has earned acclaim from the international media including Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Time, and New York Times; thus becoming the newest toast of the industry.

Evaluating the company's growth potential, Wall Street Journal recently featured the secret and strategies of LGE (CEO and Vice Chairman S.S.Kim for its rapid growth as its top story in the networking section.

Wall Street Journal disclosed in the report that LGE jumped from the 10th spot to the fifth spot in terms of sales volume in a span of only two years to prove its capability. The paper added that the rapid growth of the industry's fast-rising star is a clear case of how the ranking among global phone makers could change easily. LGE's rapid growth is attributed to the company's successful partnerships with mobile carriers in the United States and Europe.

Unveiled last summer in the United States as the world's largest CDMA mobile phone market, LGE's camera phone (model: LG-VX6000) was selected as one of the most popular products by US economic magazine Fortune for the year 2003; hence continuing to enjoy big hits.

In its second week issue for November, Fortune surveyed the most likely popular gifts for the year 2003, with mobile phones and information communication devices to choose from including digital cameras, pet robots, and mobile phones. The magazine featured the LG-VX6000 camera phone as pocket jewellery that offers not only a camera function but also games, polyphonic sounds, database, and other exciting features.

The product was also introduced as the gadget of the week in the Times Internet edition for July and featured as the representative model among camera phones in Business Week's most recent issue. Such media acclaim mirrors the enthusiastic response of the market.

Specially designed for Middle East customers by equipping it with compasses and direction-pointer program, the company's Mecca-pointer mobile phone (model: LG-G5300) was featured in the recent New York Times issue; thus reinforcing its position not only in the CDMA market but also in the GSM mobile phone market.

"The recent international media acclaim received by LGE products is attributed to the successful implementation of the company's strategies to unveil its products ahead of competitors in booming high-performance mobile markets and penetrate niche markets," said Mr. Kenn (Kie Hong) Suh, Executive Vice President of LGE's Overseas Marketing Division. He vowed to push the launching of various brand marketing and promotional events to promote the LG mobile brand image further.

For the third quarter of this year, LGE posted a 43% growth rate, which is more than twice the average market growth rate in the mobile phone market, to rank among the world's top five companies. The fourth quarter is expected to see the same strong supply of mobile phones as in the third quarter when the company outperformed Sony-Ericsson to grab the fifth spot. This boosts the company' chances to climb to the fourth spot in 2004.