LG loses $98m, ekes rare profit from smartphone group
updated 12:25 am EST, Wed February 1, 2012
LG smartphone team gets 10m in fall 2011
LG had mixed news on Wednesday that showed a possible turnaround of its long-suffering mobile group. Although the company as a whole posted a loss equivalent to $97.7 million, its mobile division turned a slight $10 million profit. Most of the recovery came on the back of the Optimus LTE and its US variant the Nitro HD.
The partial bounce back helped offset a 9.9-point drop in the mobile team's revenue for all of 2011 versus 2010. LG didn't say how many phones it had shipped but might follow up with conference calls due later in the week.
The overall company mostly lost based on investments and expenses, not performance. Its core Home Entertainment Group shipped an all-time high of 8.8 million TVs and produced a $130.9 million profit, even with a 'modest' decline versus 2010.
LG hasn't lately kept pace with Apple or Samsung in the smartphone space, although it has fared better than HTC, Nokia, and RIM in recent months. Most of its challenge has been to genuinely compete in the high-end space, since most of its lineup for 2011 centered on low-end and mid-range hardware. As a tablet competitor, it has mostly been out of the running with just the Optimus Pad getting modest results at most.
