LG on Thursday launched its latest smartphone ‘Optimus One' and announced plans to increase its mobile phone production capacity from 60-lakh units a year to 1.50-crore by the end of 2011.
Powered by the Android operating system, the new handset is priced at Rs.13,500 and comes with 8.1-cm display, 3MP camera and expandable memory up to 32GB.
“Over the next six months, we will launch ten more devices in the Optimus series, priced between Rs.8,000 and Rs.30,000,” LG Electronics India Managing Director Moon B. Shin told journalists here.
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“Smartphones are poised to drive growth in the India mobile market in the coming years and LG's focus on innovation based on thorough consumer research places us squarely at the forefront of that evolution.
Next year will be acceleration phase for LG mobiles, and investments are aligned towards taking at least 15 per cent of market share in the smartphone segment,” he said. Stating that the company had identified mobile phones as a strategic growth engine category, Mr. Shin said: “Keeping this in mind we will increase the production capacity from 60-lakh units to 1.50-crore units by next year at the Pune plant.
We also have an ambitious target of 80 per cent revenue growth in mobile business by 2011. Our revenues from the mobile business will touch around Rs.2,500 crore by next year.” “Our focus is to simplify smartphones for consumers and give them experience on how applications can improve life.
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Simultaneously, we are looking at expanding the retail presence by 25,000 outlets and 500 LG exclusive LG mobile gallery.
Next year we plan to launch 55 new models, out of which 40 per cent will be smartphones and our marketing investments would be aligned accordingly,” said company Business Group Head (Mobile Communications) Vishal Chopra.