LG Electronics said Wednesday it posted 349 billion won ($302.95 million) in operating profit for the second quarter, down about 22 percent from the previous quarter.

In a quarterly regulatory filing, the country’s electronics giant also said it recorded 12.85 trillion won in sales, which is an increase of 5.16 percent compared to the first quarter.

The operating profit figure, however, was up more than 120 percent from the 158.23 billion won reached in the same period last year with its sales down 10.61 percent during the same period, according to company officials.

When looking into the company’s business sectors, its mobile communications unit posted a loss of 56.7 billion won and 2.32 trillion won in sales.

Increased marketing costs with the launch of smartphones such as the Optimus LTE 2 and L-Style have contributed to the loss, company officials said.

But the portion of smartphones among its total units of mobile phones shipped from April-June took up 44 percent, which is the largest in size and 8 percent up from the first quarter, they said.

“We’ve strengthened our research and development capabilities compared to early 2011 and product competitiveness has improved since then,” said its chief financial officer Jeong Do-hyun.

While emphasizing that the firm will up its marketing efforts, it plans to roll out the Optimus Vu and LTE 2 overseas in places like North America and Japan.

He also said that the firm will release a new quad-core smartphone as early as the end of third quarter, putting together the battery, display and mobile phone making abilities of the company and LG affiliates like LG Chem and LG Display.

“I don’t think we will post significant profit in the next two quarters but we expect to show better sales and profit figures based on the performance by next year,” he said.

The firm’s home entertainment business posted 5.47 trillion won in sales and 216.3 billion won in operating profit in the second quarter.

The total sales figure for liquid-crystal display televisions rose 3 percent from the previous quarter and 5 percent from the same period last year despite the sluggish economic conditions of some advanced nations, its officials said.

Thanks to the company’s Cinema 3-D Smart TV sales, the home entertainment’s operating profit figure was set at 3.9 percent, a sharp increase of 121 percent from the same period last year, said LG officials.

The operating profit for the home appliance sector rose 182 percent from last year, recording 165.3 billion won in the second quarter and 2.87 trillion won in sales.

But the air-conditioning and energy solution unit’s sales decreased 11 percent from a year before due to the impact of the sluggish global market.


By Cho Ji-hyun
(sharon@heraldcorp.com)