LG notches 10 million sales of LTE smartphones, aims to double the figure in 2013

LG is a fan of making announcements over the weekend — exactly why, we’re not sure — and the company has chosen today (a Sunday) to reveal that its range of LTE devices have now passed 10 million sales worldwide. Looking forward, it is aiming to double that figure by the end of 2013.

The Korean firm announced 5 million LTE smartphone sales in August 2012, around six months ago. That gives it a rough run rate of over 830,000 sales per month on average, although of course that doesn’t account for peak sales periods — the company sold 1 million of its 4G devices during last July alone.

LG says this latest milestone is proof of its “early entry into the LTE market and its leadership in LTE research and development”, but the fact remains that — regardless of any 4G leadership — it is battling with Sony, Nokia, BlackBerry, HTC and others for the also-ran third spot behind Apple and Samsung.

LG isn’t troubling the top two smartphone markers, or many others, on market share. It failed to feature in IDC’s top 5 for smartphones sales Q4 2012 and Gartner ranked it fifth on sales of all handsets. Undaunted, the company hopes its 2013 line-up will sell 45 million units this year.

That range is a mixture of phones. Last week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, LG lifted the lid on three new mid-range devices from its new Optimus L Series II range of smartphones — the 3.2-inch L3II, 4.0-inch L5II and 4.3-inch L7II — and its high-end 4G devices: the Optimus F5 and Optimus F7.

Added to that, other smartphones are in the midst of global rollouts. The Optimus G passed 1 million sales in January and it is launching across Europe, the Optimus G Pro (its successor) is headed to the US in Q2 2013. They’re joined by the new devices which are making their way around the world too.

While its latest release have been well received by critics and are feature rich — the Optimus G Pro sports a full HD IPS display, for example — they are likely to play second fiddle to the soon-to-be-announced Samsung Galaxy S IV, and any device that Apple announces this year.

Certainly, in terms of hype from its direct competitors, HTC’s new One smartphone and Nokia’s two new Lumia devices — most notably the $183 Lumia 520 — grabbed more attention at Congress last week.

Though its smartphones were announced before Mobile World Congress, LG did spring a surprise at the mobile industry show when its acquisition of the webOS and source code from HP was revealed. It says it will embed the technology into its smart TVs, but it’s unclear if it will be used for smartphones.

Further reading: Hands-on with LG’s new Optimus L Series II Android smartphones

Headline image via scobleizer / Flickr, other image via LG