LG Mobile India has drafted a strong growth strategy to gain 10 percent market share in the smartphone market by December 2014.
At present, LG’s smartphone market share in India is below 5 percent. The smartphone market is dominated by four major brands such as Samsung, Apple, Nokia and BlackBerry.
The Korean consumer electronics major’s smartphone growth will evolve around three aspects: more products, more reach and more price points to tap more mobile customers.
LG India Managing Director Soon Kwon says LG Mobiles has earmarked Rs 80 crore for strengthening the infrastructure for retail development and marketing activities.
LG India Sales Head Rakesh Gupta says the company will expand its reach from 3,000 retailers at present. “We are present in 50-60 towns in India that generate maximum smartphone business. It will be expanded over a period of time,” Gupta said.
Besides 3,000 retailers, LG smartphones are now available in 600 plus LG branded shops, which earlier used to sell only consumer electronics brands. This will add a tremendous push to LG’s efforts to improve brand visibility and acceptance.
LG will also launch 20-30 new smartphones before December 2014. The new phones will cover all price points. However, the focus of LG, which launched its Optimus G Pro — on 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor for Rs 42,500, will be on premium phone category in India.
Optimus G Pro will compete with Samsung S4, Apple iPhone 5, BlackBerry Q10 and HTC One.
“We are also doing several brand promotion initiatives within our shops. We will increase our reach to our customers through introducing more products in phases,” Gupta added.
The company, which is aiming to more than double its market share to 10 percent by end of next year, will also expand the number of customer care centers from the present 600.
Recently, Taiwanese phone maker HTC also said it would target 10 percent market share in smartphone space this year.
However, LG does not have any immediate plan to manufacture its phones in India. At present, LG Electronics has manufacturing facilities in Pune and Noida (Delhi NCR) to make electronics products. Phones are imported from China.
