LGE overtakes HTC to become No. 2 LTE phone maker


Korean tech firms dominated the global sales of smartphones running on the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution network in the final quarter of 2011, an industry report found Wednesday.

Samsung Electronics sold 1.7 million units of LTE phones in the fourth quarter last year, maintaining its global No. 1 position with a market share of 41 percent, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

LG Electronics, previously the third-place player globally, sold about 800,000 units during the same period, with its market share of 20 percent exceeding the 17 percent of its Taiwanese rival HTC.

LG became the world’s second-largest LTE phone maker for the first time, largely driven by the soaring sales of its Optimus LTE phone, which was launched in October.

LG is also showing a strong performance in smartphone sales, with its Spectrum, Viper and Connect 4G phones gaining popularity recently, especially in the North American market.

The nation’s third-largest handset maker Pantech also sold 300,000 units in the fourth quarter with a market share of 7 percent, compared to Motorola and Fujitsu that sold 400,000 and 200,000 units respectively.

In the last quarter of 2011 when about 4.1 million LTE phones were sold globally, Korea’s leading three players Samsung, LG and Pantech took a combined 68 percent of the global LTE sales.

Their global presence is expected to get more apparent this year, considering that the global LTE market more than tripled during the fourth quarter alone.

For the whole year of 2011, Samsung topped the global market with 2.6 million units in LTE phone sales, followed by HTC with 2 million and LG with 1.1 million.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)